Bad Press
by AshaMerc
Summary: Despite the Dursley's best efforts, they are unable to stamp the freakishness out of Harry Potter. Much to their horror, the dreaded Hogwarts letter comes for Harry...and their son as well. What will happen when Dudley goes to Hogwarts with Harry Potter, intent on telling the wizarding world how terrible their saviour truly is?
1. The Unexpected Arrival

CHAPTER 1

"Albus, you can't leave Harry here! These people are the worst kind of muggles," said an irritated witch from the shadows around number 4 Privet Drive.

"I have reason to believe they will be more understanding than you can possibly imagine," the only other person on the street replied with a twinkle in his eyes that made the witch scowl.

"What could possibly change those... those horrible people's minds? Are you sure leaving him here isn't a mistake? You know very well that any number of other people would be happy to take him in!"

"Never fear Minerva," Dumbledore placated, "Everything is explained in this letter." He searched his robe pockets for a few moments before pulling out a small letter with a red wax seal. "Unpleasant people or not, these muggles are his family, and I'm sure that they will come to love him. You must trust me when I say that it will be best for young Harry to grow up here, away from the prying eyes of the wizarding world."

The sound of a motorcycle roared through the dark street as a single headlight grew brighter as it descended towards them.

"Oh Albus, surely you could have found someone a little more... qualified to deliver him?" Minerva said, aghast. "The sound alone!"  
"I have taken the necessary precautions," Dumbledore replied pleasantly. "I trust Hagrid absolutely and can think of nobody else I would rather have involved in this. You understand that Harry's being here must be kept strictly secret, of course?"

Minerva looked affronted. "Of course!" she snapped, "I only meant that-"

"Ah, Hagrid," Dumbledore cut Minerva off, "How is Harry?"

Minerva sniffed in annoyance before turning her attention to the small bundle in the half-giant's arms. The baby appeared to be sleeping, thank goodness. She took the boy and fussed over him to make sure he was okay. He shifted and made small snuffles as he got used to the new pair of arms around him before his breathing evened out again.

"Albus," she interrupted, "Is this where..." She trailed off. Dumbledore looked over to see her studying the jagged cut on the sleeping boy's forehead.

"I see you've noticed Voldemort's mark," he replied calmly, tracing a finger lightly over it. Hagrid shuddered at the mention of the dark wizard's name.

"Will 'e be okay?" he asked with concern.

"I suspect he will carry the scar with him for the rest of his life," Dumbledore responded gravely, "but scars can come in handy, you know." Minerva narrowed her eyes.

"Has Poppy given him a check-up since the attack?" she asked sharply.

"Now Minerva," replied Dumbledore, "with all of the excitement tonight I'm sure Poppy has better places to be than with a small boy who is sleeping peacefully. No, young Harry will perfectly fine."

With that, Dumbledore placed the letter on Harry's chest and stuck it there with a tap of his wand.

"Now, I think we had better be leaving," he said firmly, removing the child from Minerva's arms. Hagrid sniffed loudly as tears dripped down into his beard.

"G'bye 'arry," he hiccupped, before placing a wet kiss on the boy's forehead. Minerva discretely cast a drying spell as Dumbledore placed the boy on the doorstep, then led the now sobbing Hagrid back to his motorcycle.

She turned around as Hagrid flew away to see Dumbledore setting the wards. She nodded in approval and disapparated with a loud crack. Dumbledore felt the wards come to life. He smiled as he removed all traces that anyone had been there and left, secure in the knowledge that Harry Potter would be safe.

** page break **

Petunia Dursley woke up to see the sun shining through the lacey window covering, firmly closed so as to not allow any prying eyes to see inside. She got up and got dressed while Vernon remained snoring in the bed. Even though she wasn't expecting any company, she still made sure her hair and makeup were impeccable. Appearances were everything, and after all of the strange rumours going around yesterday she was particularly meticulous, happy that she had her life under such fine control.

Dudley began fussing, and she quickly turned the baby monitor off to leave Vernon in peace as she went to fetch him. Petunia went about her perfectly normal morning, sitting Dudley in his baby seat and making breakfast while Dudley mashed his fists into the bowl of applesauce in front of him. She could hear Vernon moving upstairs as she put the eggs on the stove and the bread in the toaster, so she quickly went to the front door to fetch the paper before Vernon reached the table.

She opened the door and froze when she saw a baby where the paper should be. She quickly yanked it inside, hoping that it was still early enough that none of the neighbours had seen. What sort of fool left a child at someone's door? Especially in this weather, which had seemed uncommonly cold and bleak recently. Vernon was already coming down the stairs before the baby shifted and exposed a letter stuck to his front. One of _their_ letters. Suddenly the whole situation made a horrifying kind of sense – who else would demonstrate such abnormal child-abandoning behaviour? Any decent sort would at least take their brat to an orphanage.

Vernon was blearily walking down the stairs, looking forward to a steaming cup of black coffee when he saw his wife standing in the doorway, eyes bugging out and looking down at something hidden by the banister.

"What's the matter, Pet," he grumbled as he walked towards her, "do I need to buy more of that cockroach spray you keep going on..." The baby suddenly came into view. Vernon stopped abruptly. "What is a BABY doing in my front hall?" he bellowed, face turning red as he looked at Petunia in suspicion.

"I... I have no idea," she stuttered as she gingerly plucked the letter off the baby's chest, fighting the urge to sanitize her hands in protection from whatever freakishness the letter contained. Vernon grabbed the letter out of her trembling hands and ripped it open. His face turned an ugly shade of puce and his moustache began to tremble furiously as his beady eyes tracked back and forth over the page.

"Is this some sort of sick joke?" he asked his wife, a dangerous glint in his eyes, as he handed her the rumpled letter to read. As she read, what little colour had been left in her face vanished. Her sister was dead, killed by the dark wizard Lily had warned her about when their war started. That was the last time they had spoken. Now, her young son had been sent here by the same man who had offered Lily and her husband protection – and evidently failed in providing.

When she reached the last paragraph she gasped and dropped the letter as if she had been burned.

"What exactly does that Dumbledore mean by when _both_ of your boys enter Hogwarts at age 11," Vernon growled. Petunia was spared answering when the smoke alarm went off. She rushed back into the kitchen, Vernon close behind her, to find the eggs burning on the stove and Dudley wailing in his highchair.

"Oh Dudders!" she simpered as she pulled the boy out of his chair, "Mummy is so sorry that she got distracted by that nasty letter. Let's get you into the tub and then you can have a special treat." She left a furious Vernon standing on a chair trying to fan the smoke away from the fire alarm and Harry in the front hall as she fled to the bathroom.

That day, Vernon called into work sick. The truth that there was a family emergency would cause too many questions – questions that he didn't have the answer to himself. With Dudley down for a nap in his room and Harry asleep in the play pen in the corner of the living room, the Dursley's sat down for a long talk.

Vernon knew about the wizarding world, but since it was taboo to talk about anything out of the ordinary in the house, there were large gaps in his knowledge. He had met James and Lily only once, and had taken an instant dislike to James, as had Petunia. He tried to keep his anger at bay as Petunia explained how the wizarding world had torn her and Lily apart as children. He got up and paced heavily as she told him about the war her sister had been a part of, and Dumbledore's role in it. When she was finished her story, Vernon stood facing away from her in silence.

"Vernon..." she tried to get him to talk to her. "You know I didn't want this!"

Vernon turned around, and stared into her pinched face. He shuffled over to the couch she was perched on and collapsed with a huff.

"Do we have to keep the boy?" he asked her.

"I think we do," replied Petunia with a frown. "Dumbledore is a powerful wizard, so there's no way we'll be able to go against his wishes. However, from his letter he made it clear that he doesn't want Harry to grow up in the wizarding world, so I find it unlikely that he will come check up on him."

At this the thunderous expression on Vernon's face brightened considerably.

"So, we won't have to have any of their... freakishness in our house?"

"You remember what I said about my sister," Petunia cautioned. "When we were younger, strange things happened around her." She shuddered as the memories of the things Lily and that awful friend of hers could do even at a young age.

"You said your mother was happy to have a witch in the family," mused Vernon. "Perhaps, with the proper... encouragement, we could stamp this wizarding nonsense out of the boy." He looked practically gleeful at the prospect. Making that James Potter's son turn out normal would be _very_ satisfying. Petunia sat and contemplated Vernon's idea.

"I'm not sure it would work out that way. In the letter, Dumbledore seemed to think that our precious Dudley would be attending that horrible school of his! There is no way any son of mine will be influenced by _those people_."

Vernon seemed stumped for a moment. Then he earnestly took Petunia's hand and assured her, "We will raise a fine boy. With the proper parenting, there's no way he'll let himself get caught up in his cousin's freakishness. Besides," he continued with a scowl, "that Dumbledore person was wrong about keeping your sister safe. I'm sure this is just a scare tactic to make sure we don't get rid of the boy." Vernon looked very pleased with himself at figuring that out.

Petunia was optimistic for the first time since the letter and the boy had arrived. Perhaps Vernon was right and she was worried for nothing. Besides, it _would_ look very good for their image to take in a poor orphaned boy. She glanced over to the baby who was asleep again in the playpen. Yes, they would take the blasted boy. But there would be no freakishness tolerated in this house! The Dursleys and Harry Potter would be living very normal lives if Petunia had anything to say about it.


	2. A Visit From Marge

CHAPTER 2

Harry Potter woke up with a start as his alarm sounded. It was 6:30: time to get up and make breakfast for his aunt, uncle and cousin. Harry was very pleased to say that at the age of 7, he was able to cook his sausage and bacon to the perfect crispiness without burning them, and leave the yolk of his eggs runny enough to dip the toast into, but not so runny that it spilled out of the shell.

He ate some toast with marmalade as he cooked, knowing that he wouldn't be invited to sit with the rest of his family as they ate. That was okay with him, because his cousin poked him with his fork when his parents weren't looking and uncle Vernon and aunt Petunia either talked about all the really boring things they had seen on the telly or took turns making fun of him.

He served the Dursley's as they sat down at the table, making sure a piping mug of black coffee was set in front of his uncle, and the pot of tea was steeping within reach of his aunt, cream and sugar at the ready. As his family ate, Harry went to work doing the dishes. He didn't pay attention to their conversation, because their conversations were almost always exceedingly boring, until he heard the dreaded name "Marge" come up. Marge was Vernon's sister, who seemed to live on breeding vicious dogs and making fun of Harry.

"Boy!" Uncle Vernon got his attention as Harry cleared his plate. He was surprised to see a sausage left over. Normally his uncle and cousin devoured any food in front of them. He supposed aunt Petunia had told uncle Vernon that he should be watching his weight again.

"Yes, uncle Vernon?" Harry replied as he moved to take Dudley's plate that looked as though he'd practically licked it clean. Dudley kicked him in the shins as he went past, almost causing him to drop the plates. Petunia scowled at Harry.

"As you know, there's a big day coming up." It was Dudley's 8th birthday tomorrow. Harry wondered what this had to do with him. Normally he was just told to spend the day in his cupboard while the rest of the family celebrated.

"Marge will be arriving for a visit in around an hour," Vernon continued. That explained why Harry had overheard her name. He suppressed the urge to shudder. "And I expect you to be on your best behaviour! That means," he dramatically raised a meaty finger, " _no funny business_. You will stay in your room and out of sight while she is here. You will not speak unless directly spoken to. Do I make myself very clear?"  
"Yes, uncle Vernon." Harry replied. He stealthily tucked the sausage into the waistband of his pants when nobody was looking. He doubted he'd be getting dinner that night. He put away the last of the dishes, then went to his cupboard to stow away the sausage before going out to weed the garden.

Aunt Marge arrived soon after, her dog Ripper in tow. Harry hated that dog. It seemed to hate him, and tried to bite his fingers if he tried to pet it. He warily kept his fingers out of the range of Ripper's teeth when he wandered over as aunt Marge was making a fuss over Dudley. Ripper growled menacingly at him until he got close to Harry. Then, much to Harry's surprise, he stopped and instead began to snuffle around Harry's waist.

"Get over here, boy," Marge demanded by way of greeting. She eyed his dirty clothes and scruffy appearance with distaste. "I see you haven't managed to be cured of your bad breeding yet. Well, there's no helping some," Marge said. Harry glared at his feet. Talking to her usually got him in trouble, especially since she hadn't asked him a question.

"Stop wasting my time and make yourself useful," Marge declared, unhappy that she hadn't provoked a reaction. She clapped him on the shoulder harder than was strictly necessary and pushed him in the direction of her bag. Harry worked on lugging her stuff through the front door while she went into the house to accept a glass of sherry from Vernon.

As Harry struggled with the bad, Ripper continued to sniff him.

"It must be the sausage!" Harry realized. He'd never been allowed to pet any other animals, especially since aunt Petunia thought most animals (and even most humans) were disgusting creatures. She only put up with Ripper because it was Vernon's sisters', and even she had to admit that he was pretty well trained.

Harry left the bag in the front hall, knowing he wouldn't have any hope in getting it up the stairs. He got the sausage from his cupboard and was feeding bits of it to Ripper while he pet him when Marge came out to fetch another present for Dudley from her bag. When she saw Harry being friendly with her prized dog she got as red in the face as uncle Vernon did when he was really angry and started screaming that Harry was trying to poison her beloved pet.

"I warned you to be on your best behaviour, and _this_ is what you do?!" Vernon hissed at Harry when he heard Marge's screams.

"I was just being nice to the doggy!" Harry defended himself angrily. "It's not my fault aunt Marge thought I was poisoning him!" By this point Marge had retreated into the kitchen, Ripper in tow, to fawn over him and partake in another glass of sherry to calm her nerves. Dudley had run out of the kitchen to avoid aunt Marge, who was practically in hysterics _and_ hadn't given him the present he'd been promised.

"Get into your cupboard, NOW." Vernon ordered.

"I didn't do anything wrong!" Harry reiterated. It was the wrong thing to say. Vernon grabbed him by the shoulder that was still smarting from aunt Marge's blow just as the glass on the picture frames exploded into bits. If Harry thought uncle Vernon was mad before, this was a whole new level. The veins in his neck looked as though they would burst as Vernon practically threw Harry into his cupboard and locked the door.

A very pale Petunia came out of the kitchen just in time to see what Vernon would later describe as "the worst sort of funny business". She absentmindedly shushed Dudley, who was complaining about his lack of present, causing him to begin to throw a temper tantrum. Petunia was leading her furious husband back to the kitchen when another bang sounded as the pictures around Dudley all flew off the walls. Dudley looked surprised before he ran over to his mum:

"Harry did it!" he cried loudly. It was his favourite excuse, mostly because it almost always worked and had the benefit of getting his cousin in trouble. "He always ruins EVERYTHING!" he sobbed as Petunia looked in horror at the mess. She really hoped the neighbours hadn't heard anything...

** later that night **

Vernon and Petunia lay in their bed, unable to fall asleep. This was partly due to the loud snores of Marge echoing through the house, but mostly because what had happened earlier today had most definitely been magic.

"...Pet?" Vernon asked in the dark, uncharacteristically quietly.

"Yes, Vernon?"

"How did Harry break the pictures when he was already locked up? Was he trying to hurt Dudley? Is it...normal in _that world_ for... y'know, _that_ to happen from that far away?"

Petunia tried to remember whether her sister had ever influenced anything out of her immediate proximity. She didn't think so, but of course she had spent so long repressing those memories that it must be normal that she'd have a difficult time thinking of any specific incidents.

"I don't remember," she replied, somewhat truthfully. "But she must have! There's no way her useless son will be any better at...that... than she was." Her tone was bitter as she continued, "Lily was a good kid, before _they_ got to her. Before she met that horrible Snape boy. But Harry... He seems to try to get Dudley into trouble whenever he can!"

"If that boy thinks he can get anything past us, he has another thing coming," Vernon growled menacingly. "He must not be getting the message that his freakishness will not be tolerated in this house, no sir!"

With that satisfying thought, Vernon quickly fell asleep. Petunia wasn't as relieved. How had Harry made the pictures fall? Had they been weakened somehow when he made the glass shatter? Was he really trying to hurt her precious son? She eventually fell into an uneasy sleep, hoping that Vernon's strategy would really be enough to make sure it never happened again.

Neither of them even considered the other option: it had been Dudley, not Harry, who had made the pictures fall. They had made a very conscious and unspoken decision to never mention the contents of _that letter_ ever again after that first night. It had easily become second nature, especially as Dudley grew and showed no signs of being anything but a very normal, perfect little boy. No, there was absolutely no way that their precious son was one of _them_.

A/N: Sorry it's taking so long to get Harry to Hogwarts... but I've decided that the backstory happening in these chapters will be important for where I plan on taking the story. He'll be on the train by chapter 5, I promise! In other news, I'm going to try to update at least once a week - I already have the plan for the entire first year written out, so it's just a matter of bulking it up (a lot). Hope you enjoy!


	3. The Birthday Disaster

CHAPTER 3

Harry and Dudley stood outside the door to the living room, desperately trying to make out the words Vernon and Petunia were hurling back and forth. It was the most intense argument the boys had ever heard coming from them, especially because Petunia tended to agree with almost everything her husband said.

"What's going on?" Harry whispered to his cousin. "What are they so mad about?"

"Shut up, freak," Dudley spat back, eye firmly glued to the keyhole. He looked really worried, which confused Harry. Dudley NEVER got in trouble!

"Are they mad at you?!"  
"I said shut it!" Dudley hissed back and elbowed him hard in the stomach. Harry groaned as he sank to the floor. The voices in the room stopped and they could hear the heavy footsteps of uncle Vernon approaching the door. They boys tried to look as though they hadn't been listening as a red-faced Vernon yanked open the door.

"Rooms. NOW!" Vernon ordered. Well used to being ordered around, Harry quickly complied, thinking he could always sneak back out as long as his cupboard wasn't locked. Dudley looked shocked. He stood his ground, saying mulishly,

"I don't wanna! This is the worst birthday EVER!"

"Don't make me repeat myself," Vernon growled threateningly as he placed a meaty hand on Dudley's back and began to steer him towards the stairs. Dudley complied mutely. Harry silently giggled to himself at the expression of pure shock on the other boy's face as he passed the cupboard.

Unfortunately for Harry, Vernon remembered to lock the cupboard as he went past on his way back to the kitchen. Harry would have to wait to learn what had gone so wrong at the amusement park.

** earlier that day **

"Wake up, wake up, WAKE UP!" Dudley practically screamed as he thundered down the stairs. Harry blearily reached for his glasses and sneezed as dust rained down on him. It was Dudley's birthday, one of only 2 days a year (the other being Christmas) that Harry woke up later than his cousin. He got dressed and wandered into the kitchen where aunt Petunia was practically smothering his cousin with kisses and Vernon was expressing just how proud he was that his perfect son had reached the double digits, as if turning 10 was some sort of huge accomplishment.

Harry snagged a piece of toast and sat quietly in the corner to eat. After breakfast, which was accompanied by a whopping 38 presents, Harry waited in the hallway for the Dursleys to get ready. Vernon came down the stairs in an unflattering white polo, tucked into his slacks, while Petunia was sporting a glaringly pink dress with a matching hat decked out in a ridiculous number of fake flowers.

The Dursleys were taking Dudley to the theme park and dropping Harry off at his boring babysitter Mrs. Figg's house. Ungrateful brats were definitely not allowed in theme parks.

With Harry out of the way, the Dursleys stopped by the Polkiss' house to pick up Dudley's best friend Piers, and then were all set to spend an enjoyable day at the theme park. The day started out well: Dudley got to try all of the rollercoasters and eat all the sweets he wanted. It was only after lunch that the solid foundation of beliefs Vernon and Petunia held so dear were utterly and completely shattered.

After stopping to get some balloons from a stand, Dudley and Piers were walking ahead, Dudley when Dudley saw a path leading to a rollercoaster that he was sure hadn't been on the map.

"Come on Piers, let's go on that one!" Dudley pointed and began walking towards the new rollercoaster.

"What are you talking about," Piers asked him, confused, "I don't see anything."

"But it's right there!" Dudley gestured enthusiastically, almost hitting the older boy who was walking towards the rollercoaster himself. The boy turned around and rolled his eyes. He was wearing funny clothing that Dudley would have made fun of if the boy hadn't started talking before Dudley could think of something to say.

"He's a muggle. Muggles can't see the magic side of the amusement park," the boy said, as if speaking to a 3 year-old.

"There's no such thing as magic!" Dudley yelled loudly, causing Vernon and Petunia to look ahead and notice the boy.

"I thought you must be a muggle-born," said the boy snobbishly, "any respectable wizard would know that muggles can't see this part of the park."

"What's a muggle?" Piers asked, as a very white Petunia and a very red Vernon caught up to them.

"Leave my son alone!" Vernon demanded as he quickly made sure the boy wasn't carrying one of their infernal magic sticks.

"Mummy, what is he talking about? Everyone knows there's no such thing as magic!" Duddly whined and Vernon threatened the boy some more. Petunia opened her mouth, then promptly shut it when she noticed that the balloons Dudley was holding were swelling bigger and bigger as Dudley got more and more angry. She stared in horror, unable to move until the pressure overcame the thin latex and the balloons burst in a loud bang.

"What happened? Are you okay?" Vernon rushed to Petunia's side. "What did you do?" he growled, turning back to the boy. HE froze as he noticed another man coming towards them, who was definitely carrying one of those sticks.

"I didn't do anything," said the boy in an annoyed tone, "that was obviously accidental magic."

Vernon was quivering with rage, while Petunia was standing perfectly still as Dudley tried to get her to talk to him. Piers just looked confused.

"Is there a problem here?" the man asked as he came over to the group.

"Just a bit of an, ah, misunderstanding," Vernon responded, a forced smile fixed on his face.

"That muggleborn boy just did accidental magic in front of his muggle friend," the boy told his father. "You should probably called the aurors to obliviate him," he added as an afterthought.

"Now see here," Vernon blustered, "My son is NOT one of you freaks!" He went unnaturally pale as the other man pointed the magic stick at him.

"I would take care to not insult someone more powerful than you, were I in your unfortunate position," the man said calmly, eyes narrowed. Vernon gulped and said nothing. "Furthermore, your son can clearly see the magical side of the amusement park..."  
"That doesn't prove anything!" Vernon spat, interrupting the other man.

"No, I suppose you muggles need everything spelled out for you," the man decided in a bored tone. "Come here, boy," he ordered Dudley, his still raised wand preventing Vernon from countering him. Dudley looked uncertainly at the man, then at his mum. She seemed frozen still, and was staring off into the sky. Vernon gave him a slight nod, disgust at being ordered around by _one of them_ twisting his face into an ugly grimace.

"Take this," the man said, not unkindly, as Dudley approached him. He moved his hand and a second wand flew out of his sleeve and into his empty hand. He flipped it around and held the bottom out to Dudley. Dudley made no move to take it from him.

"This is a wand," the man explained as he moved the wand closer to Dudley.

"That's just a shiny old stick!" Dudley exclaimed as he looked at it.

"Once you hold it, it won't feel like any stick you've held before," the man promised. Dudley looked skeptical, but grabbed the wand anyways. His small eyes widened as Piers' balloons burst when he waved the wand. He experimentally waved it again, and was rewarded by a street light beside them shattering with a loud bang. He grinned and was about to see what else he could blow up when he noticed his parents' expressions. His mum looked as though the world had ended, and was silently crying, while his dad looked like he was going to be sick. He hastily gave the wand back to the man.

"Mummy? Daddy?" he asked. No response. He hardly noticed as more people in funny clothing showed up and waved their wands at Piers and fixed the streetlight. He was about to throw another tantrum, which would surely make them stop ignoring him, when his uncle seemed to snap out of it.

"We're leaving. Now." he growled, in a tone usually reserved for Harry. He grabbed Petunia with one hand and Dudley with the other and hurriedly rushed them to the car, barely remembering to glance back to make sure Piers was following.

** back to present **

Petunia normally hated arguing, especially loudly. There were eyes and ears everywhere in the neighbourhood, and although she enjoyed knowing other people's business, she had no interest in them knowing anything about hers. Today was not a normal day though. In fact, today was shaping up to be the worst day of her life.

"IT MUST HAVE BEEN SOME TRICK," Vernon was roaring, "HE WANTED TO TRICK US!"

"I've seen this before!" Petunia hissed back, "There's no way to fake that!"

"But our Dudley!" Vernon retorted, horrified, "I just can't accept that he could be one of _them_! Haven't we been good parents? We've given him an outstanding upbringing! I already have him on the waiting list for Smeltings after next year! They CAN'T DO THIS!"

"IT'S ALREADY DONE!" Petunia yelled back, unable to restrain herself. "Our son, our precious baby, is ONE OF THEM! What are we going to do?!" She crumpled in on herself. They heard a noise outside the closed door.

"Those boys had better not be trying to listen to this," Vernon growled as he lumbered towards the door. Petunia seemed to droop where she stood, as if some invisible force that had been holding her up had suddenly left her vulnerable to the planet's gravity again. She sagged into a chair and clutched the armrests with bony claws, as if holding tightly onto the familiar furniture would somehow stop the world from spiraling out of control.

Vernon returned to the room in a few minutes. The anger had drained out of his face, and he sighed deeply as he dropped into the armchair beside his crying wife.

"What do we do?" Vernon echoed his wife's question. "Can we just... keep him out of that school? Raise him like the fine, normal boy he should be?"

Petunia cried harder as she considered it. She had planned exactly how Dudley's life would play out, and this was very much not part of the plan. "I... don't think we can ignore it. From what I know of magic," she said, breaking the taboo on the word that had been forbidden from ever being spoken of in their house, "you can't just repress it. It comes out, even if you don't want it to, the nasty, freaky stuff."

"But you always said Harry did it on purpose," Vernon replied, confused.

"Oh, you can make it come out MORE if you want to," Petunia spat. "I'm sure Harry's doing it on purpose, just like his mother did." She shuddered. "I'm sure our Dudley would have much better self-control than that little freak!"

"So, we can't keep them from getting their hands on him?" Vernon said desperately. "We can't keep him here?"

"I don't see how we could," sighed Petunia. She suddenly got a mad glint in her eyes. "But, we can make sure he doesn't get involved with the wrong sort: no arrogant jerks or vigilante groups like my sister was a part of!" She was convinced that her sister only went wrong when she was encouraged to do magic and told a magic life would be better than a muggle life. Maybe if her parents hadn't encouraged her, she wouldn't have been so happy to throw her old life away. And if she hadn't put her trust in the wrong people, namely Dumbledore, she wouldn't be dead and her worthless son who looked so much like his father wouldn't have shown up on her front doorstep to corrupt her precious son.

"He... won't go to Smeltings?" Vernon questioned faintly. "How will he learn how to be a proper man now? I'm sure they don't teach any of the proper things at magic school!"

"He will have all summer here..." Petunia mused. "You will still be a fine influence, and we can enroll him in summer programs to make up for the lack of structure he'll be exposed to for the rest of the year."

"Are you sure that's enough, Pet? I thought you really hated magic." Vernon was having a difficult time processing what was happening. Petunia had always told him that magic had ruined her life (until she met him, of course) and now it sounded like she wanted to send him to the same place!

"I do," she glared at nothing in particular, "but I hate how people with magic treat people without it even more! They disillusioned her with how great it would be, and she met people that looked down on me just because I wasn't as strange as them." Vernon looked thoughtful, but not convinced. She continued, "It was partly my parents fault; they didn't have enough common sense to know not to encourage that foolishness, and partly people like Dumbledore and Potter who got her involved in a war. She could have come back to the normal world! I would have helped her get out of that terrible situation! But no, she felt more loyalty to those freaks than she did to her own family! Dudley would never do that. We raised him too well."

"He is a good boy," Vernon said proudly, already forgetting that he had ever doubted his precious son.

"Besides," Petunia smiled tensely, "once he's learned to control that freakishness, he can always come back to the normal world and live a perfectly normal life!"

With that sorted out, Vernon and Petunia felt much better. Now all they had to do was plan out the best way to tell the boys about magic and figure out how to minimize Harry's bad influence on Dudley. Their nephew wouldn't be allowed to ruin completely everything – they would prove to him that his parents were fools. They would prove it to the whole wizarding world.

A/N: I'm ahead in my writing, so you're getting an extra chapter this week! Yay! These first few chapters were pretty Dursley-centric because I wanted their future actions to make sense. Obviously their reactions aren't exactly in character, but hopefully their thinking isn't too unbelievable! After this it will be more from Harry's POV (especially once they go to Hogwarts). I love hearing your thoughts on my story (hint hint), hope you enjoy!


	4. Diagon Alley

CHAPTER 4

"I'm a _what_?" Harry exclaimed when he was finally invited into the living room. Dudley had been talking to his parents for ages while Harry was locked in his cupboard, which was weird, since the Dursley's usually ignored his presence entirely. He'd had no idea what to expect after the big argument yesterday, but being told he was a _wizard_ wasn't something he'd ever thought was a possibility. After all, uncle Vernon always told him that magic Did Not Exist.

"Don't make me repeat myself, boy," Vernon growled. "You're a wizard and so were your parents. You'll be going to the same school they did." Harry was in shock. His parents had been magical! _He_ was magical! He was even going to go to a magical school! He grinned, sure that his life was about to take a turn for the better.

Seeing his grin, his uncle was quick to quash his hopes: "Don't get any funny ideas, boy. Dudley will be going too, and he'll make sure the teachers know not to put up with any of your bad behaviour." Harry's grin fell. Dudley would be going? Dudley was magical too? Dudley made everyone at school hate him, or at least be scared of being friends with him.

Dudley and his friends' favourite pastime was beating Harry up. Unfortunately, this extended to anyone they saw Harry talking to as well, so the other kids quickly learned to leave the small boy with the glasses and baggy clothes alone. This, coupled with how he was accused of cheating if he ever did better than Dudley in any of his classes made being at school almost as bad as being at home.

"There are some things you should know about your parents," Petunia admitted, a sour look on her face. Harry stared at her with wide eyes. He'd never been told anything about his parents! He didn't even know what they looked like! "They didn't die in a car crash; they were killed by a madman who was after them, because they got involved in a vigilante group led by Albus Dumbledore. He promised they would be safe, but instead they were blown up when one of their friends betrayed them."

"Just goes to show you can't trust any of that sort..." Vernon added, although the comment was mainly directed at Dudley, who was eating in front of the telly.

"I thought they died in a car crash!" Harry accused.

"Watch your tone, boy!" Vernon threatened. "And don't you EVER think that just because you can do strange things you'll be able to get away with anything! As long as you are living in my house, you will follow my rules! Even if they let you get away with that freakiness at school, it won't be tolerated in this house!"

"Yes, uncle Vernon."

"Furthermore, when you're at school, I expect you to listen to your cousin. Dudley will keep you in line, won't you boy." Dudley grunted, not taking his eyes off the telly program he was watching. "It's bad enough that you corrupted him with your very presence... What a fine way to pay us back for the cost of bringing you up!" Vernon was starting to make himself upset; his face was getting rather red.

"I'm sure Harry will do his very best not to cause trouble, won't you," Petunia said in a warning tone.

"Yes, aunt Petunia."

Vernon got his temper back under control with a few heaving breaths.

"You'll be getting a letter before your 11th birthday." Petunia wrinkled her nose at the thought of the birds that would be bringing the letters. She'd have to set up a remote post box for the owls to deliver to since they were not welcome in her clean house. "Until then, you'll be moving to Dudley's second bedroom." She remembered the letter her sister got had been very specific, down to the location and had decided that she didn't want to draw attention to Harry's current 'room'.

Harry was confused, but very excited. His cupboard was getting quite cramped, so even if he didn't know why he was suddenly getting a room he wasn't about to complain!

Harry struggled up the stairs with all of his belongings piled haphazardly in his arms. He set them carefully onto the bed while he sorted all of Dudley's belongings into piles. He didn't think Dudley would mind if he threw out all of the broken things, and there may even be one or two toys that were simply forgotten instead of abandoned because they were broken.

When he was done, he sat on his bed with a smile. He had a bed and a room of his very own! Even though Dudley was ruining it a little bit, being a wizard was working out pretty well for him so far.

** one year later **

"Only thirty- _six_?" Dudley whined when he was shown the pile of presents for his eleventh birthday. "That's two less than last year!"

"Look here, Dudley," Vernon said as he pointed to a few large boxes beside the table, "These ones are much bigger than last year!"  
"I DON'T CARE!" screamed Dudley. "There are LESS! IT'S NOT FAIR!"

Harry rolled his eyes as he munched on some toast. Dudley's tantrums were epic, and rather amusing to watch as long as he had no part in whatever was happening. Unfortunately, they were often used to get him in trouble. Harry didn't really see the point though – a quiet accusation would get him in just as much trouble with his family.

"Don't worry, Poppet," Petunia said in a sickly sweet voice as she hugged Dudley and smoothed his hair, "We're going shopping for school supplies this afternoon, so we'll pick out two new presents while we're out! How does that sound?"

"I want three!"

"Of course you do," Vernon smiled. "Our boy knows how to get his moneys worth! Of course you can have three. Why don't you open these ones and then we'll get ready to get the new ones."

Later, as Dudley was trying out his new toys Petunia took Harry aside.

"You have to wear this cap and respond to the name Harvey the entire time we're shopping," she said as she thrust a scruffy old baseball cap over Harry's unruly hair. Harry made an annoyed face.

"Why?" he asked petulantly. He hated wearing hats since they made his hair stick up worse than ever when he took them off.

"As I've told you before, you are famous in the magical world. They think that you somehow defeated that terrorist as a baby."

"Ruddy fools," Vernon added as he ambled over, "as if _you_ could ever defeat anyone, especially as a baby!"

Harry bristled. Sure, he was pretty small, but at least he was fast! It wasn't his fault he was always ganged up on. He did have to agree that it was pretty unlikely that a baby could take out a terrorist though. He didn't believe aunt Petunia that people would recognize him, since he'd only been a baby the last time any wizard had set eyes on him, but he knew better than to try and argue with her, especially on Dudley's birthday. He was just happy that he was getting to come along on the shopping trip!

With Harry's hat and fringe covering the scar on his forehead and a letter with a red wax seal tucked deep into Petunia's purse, the family got into the car and drove to downtown London.

They had a bit of trouble finding the entrance to the alley they were supposed to be shopping on, since neither of the adults could actually see the Leaky Tavern. Luckily, after walking up and down the street a couple times, Harry managed to spot it from Petunia's description.

The alley was amazing. Harry was in absolute awe of everything around him, while Petunia was muttering in horror about the dirt and Vernon was eyeing everyone with suspicion, his beefy hands clenched in fists at his side.

They passed an ice cream shop, and Dudley whined loudly that he wanted ice cream, even though they had just finished a sizeable breakfast before leaving. A disgruntled Vernon came back with a pouting Dudley after being told that they didn't accept muggle money. They would have to go to the bank.

While Vernon was changing his money into the magical currency, Petunia took Harry to a separate teller.

"We would like to access Harry Potter's vault," she told the surely teller.

"And does Mister Potter have his key?" the goblin responded without looking up from his paperwork.

"Key? We were never given a key!" a frustrated Petunia exclaimed.

"Then Mister Potter will not be able to access his vault," the goblin sneered, as if talking to a particularly stupid child.

"Isn't there some other way?" Petunia asked. "Look, he has the scar and everything. This _is_ Harry Potter." She pushed Harry's cap and fringe off his forehead roughly, exposing the lightning bolt scar. The goblin's eyes flicked up for a second, then returned to the stack of papers on his desk.

"No key, no vault access." He reiterated in a bored voice. "If this is indeed Mister Potter you should talk to his magical guardian to get the key."

"Magical guardian?" Petunia was confused. She thought that she and Vernon were Harry's only guardians.

"Mister Potter's magical guardian. Album Dumbledore. You do know who _he_ is at least?" sneered the goblin.

"Of course," snapped Petunia. "Come Harry, we're done here."

As they walked away, Harry asked, "Isn't Dumbledore the one that got my parents killed? Why would he be my guardian?"

"He shouldn't be," Petunia fumed as they rejoined Vernon and Dudley. "We'll make sure he isn't for long. We may be stuck with you, but we won't tolerate being in association with him as well!"

"Did you get the boy's money?" Vernon asked as they left the bank.

"No," Petunia replied bitterly, "Those filthy creatures needed a key for his account, which is presumably with Dumbledore."  
"Why would Dumbledore have his key?"

"Apparently he's the boy's guardian, not us," Petunia fumed. Vernon's face got red as he started mumbling about lawyers and wizards lacking any sort of basic respect.

Harry wasn't paying much attention to their conversation. He was carefully staying out of Dudley's elbow range as he tried to look at everything on the street. It seemed like he had stepped back in time! There was parchment and ridiculous clothing and people bowing to each other and it was wonderful. He looked up in surprise and Vernon suddenly grabbed his shoulder.

"I said, _Harvey_ ," Vernon began. Harry realized he'd forgotten to respond to his 'name'. "This means we have to pay for all of your expensive school supplies, you ungrateful brat. You've already been a burden on the family, so you'd better be happy with whatever we can afford for you."

Harry had expected to be getting Dudley's cast-offs, as per usual, or at least things from the second-hand store, so this wasn't very surprising.

"When you go to school, you'd better get that ruddy key," Vernon continued in a threatening tone, "or we won't be sending you back next year! We'll expect to be fully refunded for every penny we've spent on you!"

"Yes, uncle Vernon."

With that topic out of the way, the Dursley's went back to ignoring Harry as they fawned over Dudley and bought him everything he would need. Harry didn't mind; He got to look at everything in the stores they went to and quietly observe all of the people around him. He cast a longing glance at the pet shop as they went past. There was a beautiful snow-white owl on display outside that he swore looked him right in the eyes as he passed it. Dudley had asked for a pet half-heartedly, which left Petunia shuddering at the mere thought before she distracted him with some sweets they had bought at a store.

"THIS TASTES LIKE VOMIT!" Dudley yelled, throwing down the box of what had looked like jelly beans, but apparently came in every flavour, including bad ones. They rolled down the street, causing the people around them to stare at them in disapproval.

"Try the chocolate instead," Vernon said, handing him a couple packs of chocolate frogs. He didn't Dudley to make a scene with all these people watching. Unfortunately, none of them realized that the chocolate frog wasn't just shaped like a frog... it jumped like a frog too. It hopped right out of Dudley's pudgy hand and landed on the sea of beans.

Harry was doubled over, laughing as silently as he could as Dudley clumsily tried to grab the frog, which was floundering on the beans in its attempt to get away. Petunia looked mortified, and was standing with her hand over her mouth as her eyes darted to and fro, noticing how many people were now staring and openly laughing at them. With Vernon promising Dudley that he'd never have to eat wizard candy ever again and glaring at the people laughing at them, Petunia decided that she'd had enough. She grabbed Harry by the back of his neck and physically dragged him away. Vernon could deal with the candy incident; she'd deal with her nephew.

She bought all of Harry's things from the second-hand stores. His robes were scruffy and dragged on the ground ("you'll grow into them") and his books had all seen better days, but at least they were his! At the bookstore he had overheard a small girl with bright orange hair talking to her mother about him:

"But mum! We don't have this one yet!" the girl was yelling.

"We have enough Harry Potter books!" her mother told her firmly.

"But in this one he rescues a little girl from a _nundu_!" she explained, sure that her mum would see reason.

"I said no, and that's final!" her mom said, putting the book back on the shelf and pulling the pouting girl away.

Harry walked over to the shelf curiously. He'd never even heard of a nundu, let alone fought one. The cover of the book had a picture of him pointing a wand at what looked like a giant leopard. The picture of him was surprisingly accurate, which aunt Petunia had told him would be likely since he looked so much like his father. Apparently she had been right: he was still incredibly famous, despite being sure that he couldn't have possibly had much to do with the defeat of the terrorist. He hoped people wouldn't expect too much of him at school. That wouldn't go over very well back home.

After the bookstore, they got him his potions ingredients (he hoped the old, not quite perfect ingredients would still work well enough) and stationary (the lower quality paper shouldn't be _too_ difficult to write on) they walked into a musty old shop that sold used wands. Aunt Petunia had told him that he wouldn't be able to get a new wand from Ollivanders, which was where his parents had gotten theirs, until he got the key for his vault. As if he needed more incentive to have access to money...

"Ah, do come in," said a portly older gentleman from within the isles, as they stood in at the entrance, unsure of what to do.

"A used wand will never work as well as a new one will," he cautioned them as he led them up and down the isles, "but one should work well enough for a first year."

"How do I know which wand will work well?" Harry asked.

"You give them a wave, of course," the man replied, "you're hoping for a feeling of acceptance and a shower of sparks, but for a second-hand wand you'll be lucky to get any sparks at all. Hopefully you'll find one that doesn't blow anything up!"

Harry tried a couple, which all caused varying amounts of destruction around him. One even made aunt Petunia's carefully permed hair stand on end as if she'd been struck by lightning. Harry tried once again not to laugh as she struggled to get it back under control.

After about 10 minutes of searching, one feebly sent out a single spark and didn't blow anything up, and the shopkeeper pronounced it "good enough". A slightly rumpled Petunia (who had immediately confiscated Harry's wand after paying for it) led an ecstatic Harry back to the ice cream shop, where Dudley had calmed down after being fed a large sundae.

Dudley cheered up even more when they stopped at the toy store on the way home (after the disaster with the magical candy there was no way they'd be going anywhere near magical toys!) and got a remote controlled helicopter, an action figure that shot marbles and a new Nerf gun. Harry knew he'd have to avoid Dudley very carefully until he got bored of shooting things at him.

Once they got home, all of the magical items were carefully locked in Harry's old cupboard, not to be disturbed until they were about to leave. Vernon answered the phone as Petunia made Dudley's birthday dinner. Apparently Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but would be well enough by the next weekend to look after Harry while Dudley went to the zoo for his birthday party.

Harry sat in his room and listened to his family happily eating dinner together downstairs. School couldn't come soon enough!

A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed/favourited/started following my story this week! I don't like to comment to reviews in the chapters themselves, so if there's a review with questions/interesting observations I'd prefer to PM people, if they have it set up to allow that. I hope you enjoy!


	5. The Hogwarts Express

CHAPTER 5

Harry Potter woke up as his alarm went off with a smile on his face. His Hogwarts letter had come a couple days ago, and aunt Petunia had quickly replied in the hopes that no more owls would show up. Today was his 11th birthday, and even though his relatives were unlikely to acknowledge the day, let alone get him a gift, he was in a good mood. In only a month he'd be going to Hogwarts!

He hummed to himself as he cooked breakfast, even daring to snag a piece of bacon off the stove. Uncle Vernon shot him a suspicious look; for some reason he thought Harry was up to something any time he was happy. As Harry was serving breakfast, the front doorbell rang.

"Get the door, boy," Vernon commanded.

"Make Dudley get it," Harry shot back, his good mood making it seem worth it to talk back to his uncle.

"Give him a whack," Vernon told Dudley, who was happy to oblige.

Harry walked to the door, rubbing his sore arm. He opened it and froze – there was a _giant_ standing on his front porch! Harry tried to make his mouth move, but nothing would come out, so he settled for just gaping up at the man.

"Hello Harry!" the giant smiled.

"H-how do you know my name," Harry asked dumbly, momentarily forgetting about his fame.

"I knew yeh when you were a baby 'o course!"

"And, um, who are you?"

"Ah, sorry, I reckon I'm forgettin' my manners," the giant said sheepishly. "I'm Rubeus Hagrid, keeper o' the keys and grounds at Hogwarts."

"Oh!" Harry exclaimed, "You're from the school? I can't wait to go!"

"Who are you talking to?" bellowed Vernon from the living room, "If it's a sales person, tell them we don't want whatever they're selling!"

"It's a... uh, man, from Hogwarts!"

Uncle Vernon quickly lumbered to the door, with aunt Petunia following behind him. Dudley stayed behind at the telly.

"What do you want?" Vernon asked rudely, not bothering to introduce himself.

"Dumbledore wanted me teh take Harry ter get his things," Hagrid explained with pride. "I gotta pick summat up fer Dumbledore from Gringotts anyways."

"Well that is completely unnecessary," Petunia said coldly. "His Hogwarts things are in his trunk, ready to go to school."

"Oh." Hagrid said with surprise. "Bu' Dumbledore said..."

" _Dumbledore_ has no reason to interfere with my family," Petunia spat. Harry silently agreed.

"You tell Dumbledore that we don't want any of your sort coming around here! This is a perfectly normal house, and we'll have none of his funny business!" Vernon added. Harry found it rather funny to hear his uncle talk about an old man in the way he usually only talked about Harry.

"Dumbledore's a great wizard!" Hagrid defended loudly, causing Petunia to look up and down the street in alarm. There was no way she'd be able to talk herself out of this if anyone saw! She subtly nudged Vernon, who felt much better interacting with wizards when they weren't pointing their magic sticks at him.

Petunia's nudge went completely unnoticed as Vernon proceeded to tell a very irritated Hagrid just what he thought of Dumbledore.

"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh pig!" Hagrid snapped, pointing a pink umbrella at Vernon. Harry wondered why he was holding an umbrella in the first place – it was a sunny day.

Vernon seemed to be amused by this as well, as he ignored Petunia's attempts to pull him back into the safety of the house.

"Tha's it!" Hagrid roared, as he gestured towards Vernon. Then, to Harry's shock, he noticed a bulge in the back of Vernon's trousers, that quickly split through the fabric to reveal a curly pig tail. He grinned at Hagrid, glad to see that he wasn't the only one who thought Vernon looked remarkably like a pig.

Petunia had given out a feeble scream, then fainted into a messy heap as Vernon clutched at his backside, cursing loudly. Hagrid winked at Harry, before wishing him a happy birthday and disappearing down the street. Harry ran up to his room before he cracked and burst into laughter so hard he thought his sides might burst. He could still hear his aunt and uncle yelling in the front hall as he lay on his bed in tears of laughter. Hopefully he'd learn that trick at Hogwarts himself! No matter what happened for the rest of the day, meeting Hagrid had been the best birthday present ever!

Vernon had to take a whole week off work to take a trip to a doctor's office far, far away from Little Whinging to get the tail surgically removed. Harry amused himself by making subtle references to pigs any time he served bacon or ham for breakfast, and quietly oinking just loud enough for Uncle Vernon to hear whenever there was company. It was well worth the punishment to see uncle Vernon's face go chalky white and his hands subtly inch towards his bottom.

Near the end of August, Petunia started telling Dudley more about the magical world, and how the muggle world was far superior. Dudley didn't seem to pay much attention, but Harry always made sure to be doing his chores within earshot during those talks. Uncle Vernon did the polar opposite, and made any excuse possible to be elsewhere in the house.

Among the lessons Petunia drilled into Dudley was how Harry was likely touched in the head (not a new sentiment) because of his scar, and how his misbehaviour was obviously a sign that he was going to go wrong in the end. Harry didn't pay much attention to those talks, especially since he was a hero in the eyes of the wizarding world. From what very little he knew, it seemed more likely that they'd be shocked to know that he grew up in a cupboard, far away from rampaging nundu's.

He was sometimes involved in these conversations. Petunia often reminded him to find his account key, and Vernon warned him excessively that his nonsense wouldn't be tolerated. He always resisted the urge to roll his eyes when they brought those things up. He'd been told a thousand times by now! He wasn't likely to forget!

As it was, the month seemed to go by excruciatingly slowly. Harry found an old racecar calendar in Dudley's cast-offs and had circled September first multiple times with a broken red crayon. He was crossing out the days to count down to when he'd be able to leave.

At long last the much-anticipated day arrived. Harry practically flew out of bed and down the stairs. He impatiently made breakfast, and fidgeted until uncle Vernon reluctantly unlocked the cupboard and let him pack his clothing into his trunk.

Harry threw his entire meager clothing collection haphazardly into his trunk. He put a set of robes, his wand, some parchment, pen and ink into his school backpack. He wanted to have a chance to see how they worked before he got to school. After quickly glancing over his textbooks, he decided to put his charms book into the backpack as well. Maybe the spell to give someone a pig's tail would be in there.

Humming cheerfully, Harry dragged his trunk down the stairs with a loud bump, BUMP.

"Watch where you're going, boy!" uncle Vernon barked at him as Harry nearly backed into him.

"Sorry, uncle Vernon!" Harry said, his voice much too cheerful to sound sincere. His uncle grunted back at him. He jammed a baseball cap on his head as he went out the front door, since he was sure aunt Petunia would make him go back inside to get it if he forgot He put his trunk by the boot of the car. He wasn't strong enough to lift it up himself, so he buckled himself into the back seat instead and waited impatiently for his family to join him.

At the train station, they made their way to the barrier between platforms 9 and 10. The letter containing their train tickets also had the instructions with how to get to the platform. Apparently they had to walk _through_ the barrier, which made no sense when they could just as easily make a door that muggles couldn't see. That was Harry's perspective anyways. So far wizard logic hadn't impressed him very much.

At least aunt Petunia had figured out a way to stop the owls from coming to their house! She'd found a post office run by a squib that would allow her to have her mail forwarded through it. Let them deal with the owls, and she'd receive her post from the perfectly normal muggle postman.

Harry was hesitating in front of the barrier. Was it really safe to run into a brick wall?

"Are you afraid, wimp?" Dudley taunted as he noticed Harry's hesitation.

"No, but if you need to hide behind _me_ then you're wimp," Harry said. If he could goad Dudley to go through first, all the better. It would be rather satisfying to see him bounce off if it didn't work.

"I'm not a baby, like _you_ ," Dudley shot back, kicking Harry as he passed by and went through the barrier. Unfortunately for Harry, there was no bouncing involved - it looked like the wall swallowed him up. Aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon quickly followed Dudley. They didn't like not having their precious darling within eyeshot.

Harry followed behind with the trunks. He grinned as he looked around the platform; it was as if he'd stepped back in time! There was steam billowing from the shiny red train and people scurrying around with trunks and pet cages. It was utter chaos, and Harry loved it. He rejoined his family. Aunt Petunia was crying and hugging Dudley, and even uncle Vernon looked a little teary as he told Dudley over and over how he was sure Dudley would make him proud, even if he did have to go to a magic school and learn to control his unnatural abilities.

"I'll just put the trunks on the train," he said awkwardly, feeling like an intruder in their goodbyes. Uncle Vernon grunted, which he took as permission to leave. As he walked away he felt a little disappointed. He knew that the Dursley's didn't like him, but he had hoped they would care about him enough to at least say goodbye. He should have known better than to expect anything but indifference or hatred from them, he thought bitterly.

When Harry reached the train, he saw a chubby boy struggling to lift his trunk up while a strict-looking woman frowned at him in disapproval.

"Here, let me help," Harry offered as he grabbed the other end of the trunk.

"Thanks," the boy grunted breathily. Together they managed to heave the trunk onto the train.

"Will you help me with mine?" Harry asked, knowing he couldn't lift it by himself.

"Okay," the boy panted. "My name's N-Neville, b-by the way. Neville Longbottom."

"I'm Harry." He didn't tell Neville his last name and hoped the boy wouldn't notice. If people found out he was Harry Potter and made a scene in front of his aunt and uncle, he'd be in a lot of trouble.

Neville's eyes wandered over Harry's forehead. Luckily he still had the baseball hat on to hide his hair and scar. Harry hurriedly grabbed one side of Dudley's trunk at looked up at Neville.  
"Ready?"

"S-sure," Neville stuttered. When Harry reached for his own trunk Neville gave him a confused look.

"Why do you have two trunks?"

"The first one was my cousin's"

"Oh, of c-course," Neville blushed, "You wouldn't n-need two..." He sounded embarrassed. Harry wanted to make him feel comfortable, but didn't know how. He didn't have much experience with having friends, and he was really hoping to become friends with this boy. Dudley would probably be too busy making his own friends at first to mess up Harry's attempts at friendship, he thought hopefully.

Harry looked around the platform while Neville said goodbye to the harsh-looking woman, who turned out to be his grandmother. There were students saying goodbye to their parents and younger siblings everywhere. Some were crying and hugging, while others were more formally shaking hands.

Neville finished saying goodbye to his gran, and the two boys got onto the train to try to find somewhere to sit. They sat down in the first empty compartment they came across. Neville looked at Harry's backpack curiously as Harry unzipped it.

"Are you a m-muggleborn?" he asked Harry.

"I grew up with muggles," Harry replied evasively. He was still hoping to become friends with Neville before he was exposed as the Boy-Who-Lived.

"How does that m-metal thing keep your bag closed?" Neville asked. Harry looked down in confusion. Did wizards not use zippers?

"It's a zipper. You just move the pull and it makes the sides stick together," he tried to explain. "How do you hold your bags together?"

"Buttons mostly," Neville answered, confirming Harry's suspicions that the wizarding world was far behind the muggle world in terms of technology. Harry pulled out the parchment, quill and ink.

"You're from a wizarding family then, right?" he asked.

"Y-yes," Neville responded proudly. "I'm a pureblood." Harry knew a little bit about blood status from Petunia's rants at how backwards the magical world was. He knew that he was a halfblood, and that Dudley was a muggleborn like his mother and would be discriminated against by some because of that.

"Could you... Well, could you teach me how to write? I've never used a quill before, " Harry said, a bit embarrassed.

"Really?" Neville asked, surprised. "How do you write?"

"We use pens and pencils." Neville looked confused. "I don't think I can explain them very well, but basically the ink is inside them already." Neville still looked baffled. "I'll try and bring some back with me next time I go home," Harry said.

"Cool!"

Neville was teaching Harry how to hold a quill and write on parchment, when Harry heard a soft 'splat'. He looked down and saw a fat toad hopping clumsily over the floor towards the door of their compartment.

"How did that get in here?" he said, half to himself. Neville looked up.

"TREVOR!" he cried, and leapt up, causing the bottle of ink to start spilling onto the parchment and Harry's lap. Harry quickly got the ink bottle upright and tried to mop up the rest of the spill with his t-shirt. Neville grabbed his pet toad and turned around with a triumphant expression. He blanched when he saw the mess the ink had made.

"I-I'm s-s-sorry," he apologized. The stutter which had all but vanished while he was teaching Harry how to write was back in full force.

"It's okay," Harry said, "It's a good thing your toad didn't get away!"

"B-but your clothes!"

"We'll need to change into our robes anyways," Harry smiled. He didn't want his friend to worry about ruining Dudley's hand-me-downs. He carefully closed the ink bottle and set it all aside while he pulled his robes out of the backpack. He quickly changed, then volunteered to hold Trevor so Neville could change as well, without almost losing his pet again.

"You're Harry _P-Potter_!" Neville gasped. Harry's eyes widened in surprise as he glanced down at the cap he'd packed away with the rest of his clothes. He tried to smooth his unruly fringe down over the scar Neville was staring at.

"Uh, yeah..." he admitted. "But it's no big deal really..."

"No big deal!" Neville looked affronted. "You're the Boy-Who-Lived! You saved us all from You-Know-Who!" He gestured wildly, nearly throwing Trevor in his enthusiasm.

"I was just a baby," Harry frowned as he quickly saved the toad from being flung out the window. "It was probably something my parents did, not me."

"If you say so," Neville said, not looking convinced. He seemed surprised to see Trevor in Harry's hand. He could tell Harry didn't want to talk about it anymore, so he got changed in silence.

The two boys chatted happily as the train chugged along. They even looked through the charms book after Harry told him about the pig-tail incident.

"That was probably transfiguration, not charms," he told Harry when they couldn't find it in the book. "Maybe we'll still learn it."

"Maybe," Harry said, a little disappointed. Still, they were going to learn how to levitate things and how to make fire come out of their wands and that was still pretty cool in his books.

A while later the door to their compartment opened up, and a blond boy flanked by two other boys who looked like they belonged in Dudley's gang looked in.

"I heard that Harry Potter's on the train," the blond boy said without preamble.

"Th-this is H-Harry!" Neville told the boy, happy to introduce his friend.

"And let me guess," the boy sneered at Neville, "you're that Longbottom boy. Who else would st-st-stutter so badly. I heard you're practically a squib!"

Neville started sniffling quietly as the boy turned to Harry.

"I'm Draco Malfoy," he said pretentiously as he held out his hand. "I can tell you don't know much about our world if you're hanging out with this poor excuse of a pureblood. You don't want to make friends with the _wrong sort_. I can help you with that."

"I think I can tell the wrong sort for myself, thanks." Harry stood resolutely by Neville as he ignored Malfoy's outstretched hand. The way Malfoy talked about Neville reminded Harry far too much of how aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon talked about wizards as _those people_.

Malfoy's thin face darkened as he spat, "You'll regret that decision, Potter." He stormed out of the compartment, letting the door slam shut behind him.

"Th-thanks," Neville sniffed as soon as Malfoy was gone.

"I didn't really do anything," Harry replied, brushing off the incident. "You were telling me about the plants you keep?" he asked, trying to get Neville in a better mood.

"Oh yeah!" Neville brightened immediately before he launched into a detailed explanation of a plant he'd been given for his birthday.

The rest of the train ride went smoothly. The only other interruption was a lady with a food trolley, which Harry decided to let pass without trying anything after his previous experience in Diagon Alley. Besides, he had no money to spend.

At long last the train slowed to a stop. Harry and Neville made their way onto the platform and followed Hagrid's booming voice to meet with the rest of the first years. Harry was so excited that he thought he might burst! It was finally sinking in that he was going to be away from his aunt and uncle for almost an entire year – he was finally at Hogwarts!

A/N: Just a reminder that I don't post replies to comments in the story chapters. I'd love to respond, but if you don't have PM enabled/are signed in as a guest, then I won't be able to! Dudley isn't in this chapter, but never fear! He'll get his own chapter (not the next one, but the one after that) so you can see what ickle Diddykins has been up to.


	6. The Sorting

CHAPTER 6

Harry and Neville followed Hagrid down a slippery path to a lake where a small fleet of boats was waiting. They passed by Dudley as they went to a boat. Harry overheard him telling a couple boys that Harry often tried to get Dudley in trouble to get attention, but never managed to because Dudley was far too clever. Harry rolled his eyes: As if Dudley would ever outsmart him. That boy had the brains (not to mention looks) of a small whale. Unfortunately, the other boys seemed to be eating his stories up.

Harry and Neville were soon out of earshot, and in a boat with a two girls who introduced themselves as Hannah and Susan. The four didn't talk much as the boats glided across the lake. They rounded a final bend and saw the castle for the first time; it was huge and lit up against the dark sky. It was everything Harry had dreamed it would be, and he sighed in happiness at the thought that he would get to live in it for the next 7 years.

Trevor tried to make another break for it as soon as they got on land. This time it was Hannah who noticed and managed to catch it to give back to a blushing Neville.

"Maybe you should keep Trevor in a cage," Harry commented, "I don't think he likes your pocket much."

They continued up to the castle, where a woman with a tight bun and an even tighter frown met them.

"I'll take them from here," she told Hagrid.

"Come along, children," she directed at the rest of them, before turning around and leading them into the school.

"That's Professor McGonagall," Neville told Harry. "I've heard she's really strict."

"Yeah, seems like it!" Harry said back.

"Wait here," Professor McGonagall commanded. "I'll return for you when the sorting ceremony is ready to take place." She went through a set of heavy doors and left the children alone to wait.

"What's the sorting ceremony?" Harry asked Neville.

Neville looked rather green. "It's what sorts you into one of the four houses: Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor or Slytherin."

"What decides where you go?" Harry questioned.

"Gran wouldn't tell me..."

Harry heard the orange-haired boy talking about fighting a troll and a girl with bushy brown hair reciting spells under her breath. Harry started to wish he'd spent more time looking at his textbooks on the train.

Eventually Professor McGonagall came back to fetch them. They filed through the heavy doors and into the most spectacular room Harry had ever seen. The ceiling looked exactly like the sky outside, except for the hundreds of candles that were floating up in it. There were four heavy wooden tables, filled with students and a smaller fifth table at the front where the teachers were sitting.

Harry could almost feel the tension draining out of the first years when they were introduced to the sorting hat and learned that all they had to do was put it on their head to be sorted – no fighting trolls or spells necessary! The hat sang a song about the four houses before Professor McGonagall began calling out names from a scroll of parchment. 'Abbott, Hannah' was first, so presumably it would go alphabetically. This suited Harry fine, since he'd know where Dudley was going so he could hopefully avoid him.

Harry didn't pay much attention until his cousin was called. Dudley shuffled up to the front and sat down on the stool. The hat took a little while to decide and finally called out "Gryffindor!" The house with red ties clapped as Dudley waddled over to their table. Harry was disappointed – his parents had both been Gryffindors according to aunt Petunia, and Harry had hoped to be in the same house they were. He'd take any other house now. He really wanted to avoid Dudley if possible!

Neville was also sorted into Gryffindor, and Harry hoped they would still be friends even if Harry was in another house. Malfoy went to Slytherin with a smug look on his face. At last 'Potter, Harry' was called from the list. The hall immediately burst into whispers as everyone looked around to get a glimpse of him. Harry desperately wished he could make himself invisible as he walked up to the sorting hat.

He sat on the stool nervously as the sorting hat was placed on his head.

" _Hmmm, very interesting,"_ he heard in his head. He looked around to see who was talking, before realizing that it must be the hat.

" _I see great potential in you,"_ the hat mused, _"But where to put you..."_

"Not Gryffindor..." Harry whispered.

" _Not Gryffindor? Well then, Slytherin would do quite well for you..."_ Harry didn't want to be in the same house as Malfoy either. Hannah and Susan had seemed nice, and they had both gone to Hufflepuff.

" _No, Hufflepuff would not suit you well,"_ the hat decided, " _You aren't the type to work hard for the sake of hard work."_ Harry couldn't argue with that, especially since he didn't want to do well enough for his aunt and uncle to get upset with him. But what about Ravenclaw? He'd always been able to get decent marks, if he tried.

" _Absolutely not,_ " the hat chastised, " _If you won't be in Gryffindor there's only one other viable option."_

Harry sighed. He _really_ didn't want to be with Dudley.

" _Well then, better be_ SLYTHERIN!"

Harry got up off the stool and handed the hat back to McGonagall, who was looking a little shell-shocked.

"But Slytherin's for dark wizards!" he heard the orange-haired boy whisper in horror. The rest of the hall seemed to be in shock as well. Harry made his way to the Slytherin table where the students with green ties were politely clapping with blank faces. He sat as far away from Malfoy as possible as the rest of the sorting finished. The orange-haired boy turned out to be 'Weasley, Ron'. He joined Dudley at the Gryffindor table, where Dudley had everyone around him listen as he presumably told them stories about Harry.

Harry scowled at the table. Just his luck – he managed to get away from Dudley, but only by getting into a house that everyone thought made him a dark wizard. He was 11! How could anyone be a "dark wizard" at 11; they didn't even know a single spell!

"So, Potter," Malfoy drawled from down the table, "you thought you were too good to befriend me, yet here you are... Stuck in a house where you'll find I have a lot of influence."

Harry tried to ignore him and reached for the mashed potatoes.

"My father has an important job in the Ministry," Malfoy continued, his chest puffing out in pride.

"Good for him," Harry muttered under his breath.

"I didn't quite catch that, Potter," Malfoy narrowed his grey eyes.

"Nothing," Harry muttered as he took a bite of food. Malfoy stared at him suspiciously, but went back to talking with another first year. At least the food here was absolutely delicious, he decided glumly. Plus he could eat as much as he wanted while he was at school!

He tried talking to a girl named Daphne, but she only responded icily in short sentences, so he gave up and ate his meal in silence. He looked at the table at the front instead, trying to get an impression of each of his teachers.

At the centre of the table was the headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. He looked like the stereotypical wizard, with long white hair and an aura of power around him. It seemed a bit weird that he'd have guardianship over Harry, since he was the headmaster of the school and all, but Harry guessed they had different rules in the wizarding world.

The next person that caught his eye was a very, very short man, who seemed to be very cheerful, if a little over-animated. There was Professor McGonagall, of course, who seemed to have a permanent frown of disapproval.

There was a man with long black hair and a hooked nose, who was talking to a nervous-looking man in a turban. The man in the turban caught his eye, causing the man with the long hair to look over at the Slytherin table. He glared forcefully at Harry, who quickly looked back to the table. He wondered why the man was glaring at him – to his knowledge, he'd never met him before!

After that he lost interest in the staff table, and watched the sky instead, as he tuned out the conversations around him. He was used to not being involved in dinner conversations, so this didn't bother him too much.

Long after Harry had finished eating, Dumbledore stood up to signify the end of the feast. He told them the basic school rules, but also that the 3rd floor corridor was off limits to anyone who didn't want to die a painful death. Judging by the surprised looks and whispering that broke out, this wasn't a normal rule.

Harry yawned. It was much later than he normally went to bed, since he had to get up early to cook breakfast for his family. He nearly fell asleep during the school song, but managed to blearily stumble along with the rest of the first years as they were led down to the dungeons to the Slytherin common room.

"Praestantes," one of the prefects stated as they got to a specific wall in the dungeon. Harry blearily tried to remember exactly where it was so he wouldn't get locked out. He was hoping they'd be allowed to go straight to bed, but was instead told to sit down. Their head of house wanted to introduce himself, apparently.

Harry liked the atmosphere of the common room he decided as he sat on the corner of one of the dark green sofas. It was dark and mysterious, but full of interesting decorations. The whole room had a green theme to match the house colour of Slytherin. There were large windows on the far walls, which you couldn't see anything out of since it was so dark outside at the moment. Harry wondered how the view was during the day.

Some of the other first years shivered and looked around a little warily. Harry was used to the dark and the cold from living in a cupboard for 10 years with never quite enough blankets during the winter. He had specifically taken a seat near the smoldering fireplace anyways – it's not like he actually preferred being cold, just that he was used to it.

As soon as the first years were settled, the prefects went over some of the basic rules: Passwords were changed once a fortnight and posted on a board on the wall. Students from other houses were absolutely not allowed in, and any student who accidentally gave away the password would be in a great deal of trouble.

As the prefects were finishing telling the first years about where to go if they needed anything, their head of house swept into the room – it was the man with the long, black hair that had glared at Harry during dinner. He introduced himself as Professor Snape and spoke in a calm, quiet voice that exuded authority, but unfortunately had the side effect of lulling Harry to sleep. He slowly slipped down in the sofa as his eyes shut.

"Potter!" Professor Snape barked, as he noticed the young boy fall asleep. Harry jerked awake with a gasp,

"Yes sir!"

"Evidently you think you are too good to grace us with your attention," Professor Snape sneered, "but you will find that fame isn't everything, especially in this house. We do not tolerate any disrespect."

"I'm sorry sir," Harry replied, "I'm just really tired."

"Then perhaps you should give yourself a good pinch," Professor Snape replied, "I've heard it's good for stimulating alertness in those who lack the mental capacity to pay attention."

Many of the first years were snickering at Harry, who was glaring at the floor, not wanting Professor Snape to have any more reasons to insult him. It was just his luck: how did anyone manage to make someone hate them simply by existing?

"As I was saying," Professor Snape continued, as if nothing had happened, "My office door is always open should you need me. However, if I find you wasting my time when you could have just as easily spoken to a prefect, I will be most unimpressed."

That made Harry feel a little better; he was at least going to be strict with everyone, even if he only openly mocked Harry. At long last, after a final warning that the house must remain unified in public and would be expected to continue the 7-year winning streak with the house cup, the first years were shown to their dormitories.

Harry noticed his trunk near a bed and all but collapsed into it. He barely managed to get his shoes and glasses off before he fell fast asleep.

Severus Snape was sitting in his chambers, nursing a glass of firewhisky, cursing the fates and James Potter and Dumbledore and anyone else he could think to curse. What in Merlin's name was a Potter doing in Slytherin? How could the hat make such a colossal mistake? There was no way that brat belonged in Snape's house.

He took a swig of his drink and roughly set it down on the table. He'd overheard Potter's cousin telling the other Gryffindors about his home life back home. Potter seemed to be just like his father: always wanting more than the considerable amount he already had. If Potter behaved that badly at home, there was no telling how ghastly his behaviour would become here, now that his family couldn't keep his arrogance under control.

Snape was sure that it was only a matter of time before the boy began bullying others, just as his father had. Well, he'd have to make sure Potter didn't get away with any of that nonsense here!

Snape grimaced. The last thing he wanted to do was babysit the brat, but others were so likely to be blinded by the boy's fame that they'd let him get away with anything. Dumbledore especially couldn't be trusted to discipline the boy – he had an annoying tendency to let his favourite students practically get away with murder (literally). Well, Snape wouldn't let that happen. He'd make sure the boy learned his place.

A/N: I really don't like the name of the story right now (mostly because I'm not focusing on what the newspapers say about Harry, and that's what I would assume 'Bad Press' refers to), but it's better than the working title at least; It's called "Gryffindursley" on my computer... So if you can think of anything better, you'll get all the credit for naming my story! In other news, I may be updating a little less frequently for the next couple weeks. I'm not as ahead with my writing as I'd like to be!


	7. Dudley Goes to Hogwarts

CHAPTER 7

Dudley squirmed as his mother practical smothered him with kisses on Platform 9 ¾. He was going to miss her, but there was no need to always make such a scene!

"Never forget that your family is more important than magic, Dudders!" his mum told him as she bade him goodbye. His parents both hugged him once more before he got onto the train. He found one of the last empty compartments and pressed his face against the glass to wave goodbye to his parents. His mum was sobbing into her handkerchief while his dad solemnly waved goodbye.

Dudley sat down with a sniff as his parents faded into specs in the distance. Truth be told, he was homesick already. He'd never even gone to summer camp, let alone been away from his parents for four months!

There was a knock on the door and a young boy with orange hair poked his head in.

"Mind if I sit here?" the boy asked, "Everywhere else is full."

"Fine," Dudley said. He was bored already anyways.

"My name's Ron," the boy told Dudley. "Ron Weasley."

"I'm Dudley Dursley," he responded half-heartedly.

"I heard that Harry Potter's on the train!" Ron enthused, "Wanna see if we can find him?"

"Ugh, no!" Dudley made a face. "He's my cousin. He's lived with us since he was a baby."

"You mean," Ron said with his eyes practically bugging out of his skull, "you've lived with the Boy-Who-Lived most of your life?! That's so wicked!"

Dudley scowled. His cousin was messing everything up, and he wasn't even physically with them! Ron carried on, not paying Dudley's murderous face any attention.

"Does he really have, you know, the _scar_?" Ron asked him in a hushed voice.

"Mhmm," Dudley grunted. "My mum said he's touched in the head or something."

"What do you mean?"

"He's been nothing but a burden on the family," Dudley told Ron, parroting the words of his parents. "He's an ungrateful freak who's never up to any good. Mum says it's because he takes after his dad, or from whatever that terrorist did to him when he tried to blow Harry up."

Ron didn't know what a terrorist was, but figured it was probably another way to say You-Know-Who.

"You're wrong!" Ron was really upset. "Harry Potter is the hero of the wizarding world! I bet he's super brave and he'll be in Gryffindor, with me!"

Ron looked like he was going to leave the compartment, but there was no way Dudley would ever let anyone defend his worthless cousin.

"Sit down!" he commanded Ron, as he grabbed onto his arm roughly. "When we get to school you'll see how he messes everything up! When we were young he made all the picture frames in the house try to attack me!"

Dudley didn't believe that he did freaky things like Harry. Sure, strange things happened even when Harry wasn't close by sometimes, but his parents had told him that it was Harry trying to get him into trouble. He knew his parents didn't lie to him, so it was just another example of the freak getting in the way of his life.

"But, why would he do that?" Ron was muttering in a disbelieving tone.

"Mum says he's going to go wrong in the end," Dudley explained, helpfully in his opinion.

"That's not possible!" Ron was starting to sound a little doubtful of himself. "Unless!" A look of comprehension lit up his face, "You-Know-Who did something to him when he was a baby! I bet his scar is a _curse scar_!"

"Whatever." Dudley didn't know what a curse scar, but it sounded bad, so that's probably what it was. "You just can't be friends with him or he'll ruin your life too."

Ron wasn't entirely convinced, but decided to let it drop.

"What house do you think you'll be in?" He asked, changing the topic away from Harry Potter.

"I dunno," said Dudley. He didn't really know much about Hogwarts, since his mum usually just went on about how awful people with magic were, and how they'd try to tear him away from his family. He didn't really care either; He had wanted to go to Smeltings like his dad. They got sticks to whack each other with! Instead of a Smeltings stick he had a stupid little wand that hardly did any damage when he tried it out on Harry.

"I'm hope I'm in Gryffindor!" Ron informed the bored boy. "My older brothers are all in that house, and I don't know what they'd say if I went anywhere else."

"Mm," Dudley grunted as he pulled a package of sweets out of his backpack. He was hungry!

"Are those muggle sweets?" Ron asked him when he didn't recognize what Dudley was holding.

"Yeah," Dudley mumbled through a full mouth.

"What do they do?"

"Whaddya mean?" Dudley asked. They were just sweets – they didn't _do_ anything.

"I'm guessing you've never had real sweets!" Ron said, "Wizard sweets I mean." He didn't notice Dudley's shudder as he remembered all too well that he had, in fact, had wizard sweets – an experience he had no interest in repeating.

"We have chocolate frogs that actually hop, and fizzing whizbees that make you float while you eat them, and ice mice, which make your teeth chatter and squeak like mice..." Ron trailed off, lost in a candy daydream.

Dudley was glad he had his own sweets. Why would you want your teeth to squeak like mice! His teeth were going to stay the way they were naturally, thank you very much.

Ron finally stopped talking and zoned out the window. Dudley pulled out his Game Boy to play some Tetris. The screen was a little funny, but with a few raps on the window it was working okay again. Ron tried to ask him about his game, but Dudley ignored him until he went back to staring out the window at the cows they were passing.

"Anything off the trolley, dears?"

Around lunch-time a great clattering noise came down the corridor and a woman appeared in their doorway.

"No," said Dudley and went back to his Game Boy. He didn't want any of their freaky food!

"No thanks," Ron also declined, "I have my own lunch..." He pulled out some sandwiches and took a look inside. "Ugh, I hate corned beef."

Dudley put his game down for the time being and took out his own lunch.

"So, what's your Quidditch team?" Ron asked conversationally as he nibbled his sandwich.

"What's Quidditch?" Dudley asked through a mouthful of his own sandwich.

"You don't know what Quidditch is!" Ron was dumbfounded. "Oh yeah, I guess muggles can't play!" He launched into a long-winded explanation, which Dudley was only half listening to. He didn't much like sports, although he'd watch almost anything on the telly.

It took until Ron started talking about Beaters that Dudley started paying attention.

"You mean," he said, interrupting the redheaded boy, "there's a position where you get to smack balls at people to try and knock them off their brooms?"

"Oh yeah!" Ron replied, "My brothers are both beaters."

Dudley thought maybe Quidditch wasn't a completely stupid game after that. He had a lovely daydream in which he bashed Harry off his broom while his parents cheered on the sidelines. Riding a broom couldn't possibly be too much effort - maybe he'd give it a go after all.

He let Ron chat on, long after he'd stopped listening. His mum talked a lot too, and seemed to think Dudley was listening as long as he made the occasional grunt. His dad had taught him that trick years ago.

Later, there was another rap at their door. Ron opened it to find a blonde boy, flanked by two solid looking boys that Dudley thought must be members of his gang; they reminded him of his friends from back home. Dudley frowned; how come this boy had a gang already, and the only person he'd met was the stringy redhead.

"Have either of you seen Harry Potter?" the boy in the middle asked. "He's supposed to be somewhere around this area of the train."

"Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell _you_ ," Ron spat, instantly recognizing the boy as Draco Malfoy, the son of Lucius Malfoy – a man Ron's father hated.

"I see you know who I am," the blonde boy said, in an obnoxiously pleased tone. "But you don't," he continued, noticing the confused expression on Dudley's face.

"Draco Malfoy," he introduced himself. Dudley stuck out his hand; his father had always taught him that a firm handshake was crucial when meeting someone important, and Draco Malfoy certainly seemed like an important person.

"I'm Dudley Dursley."

"Pleasure," Malfoy drawled, distaste showing on his pale features. He ignored Dudley's hand. "This is Crabbe and Goyle," he said, pointing to his gang.

Ron started to talk, but Draco cut him off.

"No need to introduce yourself," Draco sneered. If he'd been rude to Dudley, he was being outright nasty to Ron. "My father told me all about _your_ family – all redheads with freckles and not enough money to pay for all the children. How many siblings do you have? Five?"

"Six," Ron spat at him bitterly.

"That's just rich," Draco laughed. "You two are perfect for each other – a mudblood and a blood-traitor; I bet it was love at first sight!"

Dudley and Ron both went red with anger. Dudley clenched his fists while Ron fumbled in his robe to pull out his wand. Draco laughed again and left before the two boys could do anything. He made kissing noises as he slammed the door shut and carried on down the train.

"I am gonna KICK HIS ARSE," Dudley bellowed as soon as he could swallow his rage enough to talk. He kicked the seat, imagining it as Malfoy.

"Ugh, he's bound to be a Slytherin for sure," Ron informed Dudley. "All the dark wizards go there."

Dudley decided right then that there was no way he'd go to Slytherin. And he really needed to find some boys to gang up with him to take that git down. He looked at the enraged redhead - Ron seemed like a good fit.

"We need to make some friends so we're stronger than he is," Dudley told Ron. "Then we'll see who's better." Maybe he could still find a stick somewhere; his dad might even send Dudley his old Smeltings stick if he asked for it.

"Yeah," Ron said, rubbing his hands together. "Malfoy needs to be taken down a peg!"

After meeting Malfoy, the rest of the journey was uneventful. Dudley wasn't expecting to see the giant who had put a pig's tail on his dad, but there he was, expecting Dudley to _follow_ him! Ron told him that what he'd done had probably been illegal; you weren't supposed to do magic on muggles!

It took FOREVER to get to the castle. Dudley was tired from the walking and cranky, since he hadn't had anything to eat since the train and that felt like it had been over an hour ago! When they did get to the castle, some angry-looking old woman told them they had to wait even longer, and that they wouldn't be able to eat until after they got sorted.

"My brothers told me we have to fight a _troll_ ," Ron told Dudley. Dudley wouldn't be surprised if that were true – his dad had been right, wizards were all completely daft! Dudley himself wasn't too nervous. He planned on making whoever chose where he was going listen to him by any means possible. He wasn't above throwing a tantrum to get where he wanted, although that would be a last resort. It wouldn't look good to throw a tantrum in front of all the rest of the kids.

McGonagall came back and told them they were ready to be sorted... by a hat. He rolled his eyes; he'd thought the troll idea had been stupid! His dad would have a good laugh over this.

Dudley had mentally prepared himself for being sorted by a hat, but he wasn't ready for the old thing to burst into song. He let out a snort as he tried to suppress his laughter. A girl with bushy brown hair glared at him - she was obviously taking this very seriously.

"Dursley, Dudley," McGonagall called out. Dudley made his way to the stool and sat down. He made a face as the sorting hat was set on his head; his mum wouldn't approve of letting something so old and dirty anywhere near him!

"Hmm, where to put you," a voice spoke in his head. Dudley nearly jumped off the stool in alarm. Somebody was reading his mind! No wonder his parent's hated magic so much - there wasn't nearly enough privacy!

The hat ignored his freak-out and went on with its sorting business. "I see you have no desire to work hard or learn much of anything," it said. "I would consider Slytherin, if they were more accepting of muggleborns..."

"Don't you dare put me in Slytherin!" Dudley threatened the hat under his breath, "Or I'll take you off and stomp you!" He really didn't want to be in the same house as Malfoy!

"Well then," the hat continued, "better be GRYFFINDOR!"

A smug Dudley went to the clapping red table. Ron beamed as he was sorted to Gryffindor as well - perfect! Things were shaping up nicely.

When all the students had been sorted, the headmaster stood up and introduced himself. He seemed a little mad in Dudley's opinion, but Ron and his family seemed to think he was brilliant.

Mounds of food appeared, well, like magic as soon as Dumbledore was done talking. Ron dug in right away, but Dudley hesitated slightly. Magical food had a horrible tendency to do funny things to unsuspecting people. Nothing freaky seemed to be happening to Ron though, so Dudley piled food on his plate and was soon eating just as enthusiastically as the other boy.

"Can you believe that Harry Potter got sorted into Slytherin?" People were asking all down the table. Dudley was too busy eating to reply, but luckily Ron was quite talented at talking with his mouth full.

"Dudley lives with him! He told me that the scar is a curse scar and Potter's always trying to get him into trouble! I didn't believe him at first," he said, shooting Dudley and apologetic look, "but now he's in Slytherin and everyone knows that only Dark Wizards go there."

Everyone within earshot was now paying full attention to the two first years. Ron was excited to have so many people listening to what he was saying; as the youngest of 6 boys he was often overlooked. Dudley was done with firsts, so decided he could take a small break to weigh in on the conversation.

"My mum says he's touched in the head and he's gonna go wrong in the end," he told them, repeating what he'd told Ron on the train. Speculations on what must have really happened the night Harry Potter's parents had died began to spread down the table, getting more and more outrageous as they went. Dudley went back to his food.

"I bet You-Know-Who transferred all of his powers to him!"

"He probably just took over Potter's body! He's been possessed all these years"

"I reckon He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named tried to control him, but failed, and Potter went mad right then! Then he killed You-Know-Who out of revenge and rode off into the night on a Nundu!"

"Don't be ridiculous," another red-haired boy sniffed. He had a shiny badge pinned to his robes. "He's just a kid. You can't be a dark wizard as a kid."

"I'm pretty sure You-Know-Who was a dark wizard, even as a kid," another older boy replied skeptically.

"I-I m-met him on the t-t-train," Neville pitched in. "He was r-really nice."

"He's a _snake_ ," Ron insisted, "they act nice while they hex you in the back!"

Dudley was reaching for the mashed potatoes and largely ignoring the conversation when a translucent white head poked up out of the food. He yelped and dropped the serving spoon right through it. He wasn't eating anything a ghost touched!

Ron didn't seem too bothered, and even struck up a conversation with the ghost, but Dudley was quite put off his food. He did manage to bravely nibble some treacle tart for dessert, after thoroughly inspecting it for any ghost slime or anything else unusual, but he knew he'd have to write a letter to his parents and get them to send him food if he was going to be completely safe.

There were way too many stairs they had to take to get to their common room.

"Why doesn't the school have lifts?" he complained loudly as he puffed up the stairs. The red and gold common room seemed rather tacky, and Dudley had to _share_ a room with four other boys! Having to give up his second bedroom had been bad enough – here there wasn't nearly enough space for him!

Dudley pulled out his Game Boy to play some Tetris before bed, but when he tried to turn it on, the screen went kind of fuzzy before it completely stopped working.

"Muggle electronics don't work around magic," Seamus Finnigan told him. Dudley threw the Game Boy onto the floor and stomped it into pieces.

The first week of school didn't go much better for Dudley. Classes were really hard and almost impossible to find. He and Ron were late quite a bit during the first week, and the bushy-haired girl, Hermione Granger, refused to do his homework for him, even though she was such a bookworm that there couldn't possibly be anything else she was doing with her spare time.

There were also only three meals a day, and not nearly enough snacks. Didn't they know he was a growing boy who needed to eat? Dudley hated all the stairs, and hated all the professors who made him do unnatural things. He especially hated how there wasn't a single telly or computer in the entire school! They were expected to play chess, or play outside or, heaven forbid, read books for fun! Hogwarts was the worst.

A/N: So here you are: reasons why I put Dudley in Gryffindor. I really don't think he could have gone anywhere else, to be honest, with all of the prejudice against muggle-borns in Slytherin (and he really wouldn't be clever enough to overcome that). I don't think I'll do any more completely Dudley chapters in the future, but split it up between him and Harry, so if you aren't a fan of Dudley, don't worry!


	8. First Impressions

CHAPTER 8

Harry woke up blearily, wondering why his alarm hadn't gone off yet and why it sounded like someone was taking a bath beside his bed. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, before grasping around on the side tablet to find his glasses. He stared in confusion at the sea of green silk surrounding his bed before a huge smile broke out over his face. He was at Hogwarts, and the closest Dursley was half a castle away!

He found the bathroom and quickly got ready for the day. He didn't know what time it was, and everyone else seemed to be asleep, but he was sure he could find something to do to pass the time.

First he started by looking around the room they were in. There were three identical beds with trunks beside them. He wondered whom he was sharing a room with. One of the trunks said "D. Malfoy" on it – no mystery there. The other one was unnamed. He'd have to wait until the other boys woke up to figure out who they were.

Harry wandered into the empty common room. The light was greenish, and making funny patterns on the wall, which he was confused about until he realized that the windows had water behind them, instead of air. He realized that the watery noise he had noticed when he woke up was probably coming from outside the castle: they must be underneath the lake!

He resisted the urge to stand on a chair to press his nose against the glass as if it were an aquarium; Professor Snape would definitely not like that! Instead, he left the common room and wandered around the halls. He found the potions classroom in the dungeon, and, after realizing that the portraits could _move_ and _talk_ , made himself acquainted with some of the nicer-looking ones.

He knew breakfast would be served in the Great Hall at 7:30, and although he didn't know what time it currently was, it couldn't hurt to make his way over there. Unfortunately, he couldn't quite remember the way. He tried backtracking from the way they'd come last night, but he had been so tired that almost nothing looked familiar.

Harry was very nearly becoming panicked – he'd been wandering for what felt like hours (though likely was a lot less), and he hadn't seen a single person. He'd tried asking some ghosts and portraits, but they were largely unhelpful.

"Ooh, an ickle firstie!" he heard a gleeful voice cry, "What's a wee one doing up so early, all alone!"

"Hello?" Harry said. He couldn't see anyone. Maybe it was a ghost. Could ghosts go invisible?

"I'm Harry," he told whoever was talking, "I'm trying to find the Great Hall."

"Hairy Harry should know better than to ask Peevesy for directions!" Harry started as the owner of the voice suddenly appeared in front of him. He was wearing the most outlandish clothing Harry had ever seen on anyone, alive or dead, and seemed to be holding something.

Harry didn't have to wait long to learn what was in "Peevesy's" hands; He soon found himself dripping wet as the cackling figure lobbed balloons at him, then blew loud raspberries as he sped away. Harry rubbed at his face, and wiped his glasses on his robes. They had streaks of black on them – it hadn't just been water in the balloons, but watery ink.

Harry groaned as he tried to clean himself up. Half of his hair was plastered down to his skull and he could hardly see through his glasses. He considered giving up on finding the Great Hall – he'd skipped meals often enough in the past – but was pretty sure they'd be getting their class schedules at the meal. With a sigh, he continued wandering around the halls.

Eventually, a group of students passed by, and a grumpy Harry trailed them until they reached breakfast.

"Look at Potter!" Malfoy exclaimed as Harry sat at the Slytherin table, "He's taken a shower out of an ink bottle!"

"Sod off, Malfoy," Harry replied grumpily as he angrily speared a sausage. Malfoy and the two large boys that seemed to follow him everywhere laughed openly at him, while most of the other Slytherin first years either gave him contemptuous looks or ignored him completely.

At the end of breakfast, Professor Snape came around to hand out their schedules. As he reached Harry, his ever-present look of disinterest turned into a full-blown scowl.

"Mister Potter," he drawled, "As you can't even managed one morning without a pitiful attempt to draw attention to yourself, you will report to me precisely at seven tonight, in my office, for detention."

"But Sir!" Harry was indignant, "It was a ghost, I think!"

"Stupid boy – ghosts are incapable of physically interacting with you." He handed Harry the timetable and swooped away in a billow of robes.

After that, Harry was careful to be around people, even if he wasn't, strictly speaking, with them.

As the first week of classes progressed, Harry quickly learned that magic had a lot more to it then just pointing wands and saying spells. There were all sorts of things they had to learn before even the most basic spells would work, plus, classes like Astronomy and Herbology hardly used wands, and history or magic class was entirely textbook readings and essays.

Charms was taught by a very short, excitable man, who was the head of Ravenclaw house. Harry liked it, but made sure to not look like he was too good at the subject. Luckily that wasn't difficult, since it was harder than it looked, and they were paired with the Ravenclaws, who often got things right faster than Harry would even if he was trying his hardest.

The strict professor who had taken them to be sorted was the head of Gryffindor house and also taught Transfiguration. She didn't let anyone get away with anything in her classes, which Harry greatly appreciated. She was also incredibly sharp, and never missed Malfoy's attempts to sabotage Harry's work. After the first class, Harry and Malfoy weren't allowed to sit on the same side of the room as each other.

The two classes Harry really didn't like were Astronomy, because it was held at midnight in a cold, dark tower, and Defense Against the Dark Arts, because Professor Quirrel was useless. He stuttered so badly they could hardly understand him, and seemed frightened of everything. Harry often got a headache after that class, which he assumed was from the pungent smell of garlic that infused the room. It was rumoured that it was there to ward off vampires, but nobody knew for sure whether that even worked.

History of Magic was also pretty boring, since the Professor was a ghost who didn't even seem to know he was dead. Nobody listened to him, and either chatted quietly or worked on homework for other classes. Harry had to be vigilant in that class because, like Dudley, one of Malfoy's favourite pastimes was tormenting Harry.

Herbology was pretty fun. Harry was good at it, since his chores back home involved a lot of gardening for aunt Petunia. Plus, his aunt and uncle were unlikely to get mad at him if he did better than Dudley in the course. He almost wished they were in the same class as the Gryffindors so he could partner with Neville, but realized that they could at least do homework together – as long as Dudley wasn't around, that was.

As Harry had predicted, Dudley was making life as difficult as possible for Harry. He told stories about Harry setting him up to get in trouble, and cheating off anyone who tried to befriend him that made it virtually impossible to befriend anyone. It didn't help that the other three houses disliked Slytherins, or that Ron Weasley – who had become good friends with Dudley – was convinced that only Dark Wizards went to Slytherin, so Harry must be evil.

Still, Dudley only had potions class with Harry once a week, since the Gryffindors and Slytherins were usually kept separated, presumably due to the massive rivalry between them. The class twice as long as any of their other classes, and on Friday mornings. They were taught by Professor Snape, so Harry wasn't looking forward to them.

On Friday, there was a big stir when the Daily Prophet arrived. There had been a break-in at Gringotts on Harry's birthday! Luckily nothing had been stolen, but lots of people were worried, since it was supposed to be impossible to steal from the Goblins. Harry wondered if Hagrid would know what had happened. He'd told Harry that he had to get something for Dumbledore when he came to pick Harry up to take him to Diagon Alley. Harry tried to make a mental note to ask Hagrid sometime, but it soon slipped his mind.

After breakfast, Harry made sure he was ready for potions class with plenty of time. He'd been late to a couple of his classes because he kept getting lost without friends to help him. Most of the first years travelled in packs, and usually got mad if Harry tried to tag along, worried that he was going to try and get them in trouble. Harry was known to be quite a snitch, thanks to Dudley.

This was the one class the Slytherins shared with the Gryffindors, so Harry immediately sat beside his only friend: Neville Longbottom. He'd noticed that Neville was alone quite a lot as well, and figured Dudley was probably bullying him. Dudley didn't like anyone who wouldn't back him up in a fight, and Neville was definitely not that sort.

"I-I'm really bad at potions, Harry..." Neville warned him before the class started.

"It's okay," Harry reassured him, "I've never done potions before so I'm probably rubbish."

Professor Snape swept into the room with his usual dramatic flair. He took attendance, but paused at Harry's name.

"Harry Potter, our newest... celebrity." Malfoy sniggered, obviously hoping that Professor Snape would lay into Harry like he did after the welcoming feast. He wasn't disappointed.

Harry sank lower and lower into his chair as Professor Snape asked him multiple questions he couldn't answer. He would have been sure it wasn't first year material, except there was a Gryffindor girl who obviously the answers, so he could only blame himself for not reading his textbook in enough detail.

"Tut, tut, Mister Potter; I don't know what foolishness your other professors have been tolerating, but in this class it is your achievements which will speak for you, not your fame."

Harry glared at his Professor. He had lost a lot of respect for the man; he treated Harry just as badly as his relatives did, and had no apparent reason for doing so!

Snape continued on with calling out names as if nothing had happened, before concluding his introduction with a long-winded (but very poetic) description of the skills they would be learning – if they weren't all 'dunderheads'. Harry had to begrudgingly admit that the man was at least very passionate about the subject he taught.

"I'll get the ingredients while you set up the cauldron," Harry told Neville as soon as they were set to work on making a potion to cure boils.

"O-okay," Neville replied as he attempted to light the fire under his cauldron.

Harry came back with the ingredients and the started to follow the instructions from the book. Neville hadn't been exaggerating – he was absolutely _horrible_ at potions! He could hardly follow the instructions and tended to get nervous and just throw things in without double-checking.

Harry thought he might like potions, if it weren't for Snape. It was similar to cooking, which he truly enjoyed doing, and was pretty good at, due to it being one of his chores at the Dursleys. As it was, Neville was a mess around Snape, and even more clumsy than usual, which was quite a feat.

Harry quickly learned that Snape hated the Gryffindors almost as much as he hated Harry. He stalked down the rows, glaring at the students, and causing most of them to become so scared they made stupid mistakes. Snape would then take points, while pointing to a Slytherin group that had done the step much better.

Something landed in Harry's hair. He brushed his hand through it, absentmindedly, and some bits of porcupine quills fell out. He glanced around. Dudley and Ron were obviously trying very hard to look busy, which was difficult when they were laughing.

"I-is it supposed to be p-purple?" Neville asked Harry in concern as he looked at the cauldron.

Harry stopped glaring at his cousin and looked down at his book. "Uh, no..."

"Are y-you sure?" Neville asked pitifully.

"Yeah," Harry replied glumly, "But maybe if we add the porcupine quills it'll fix itself!"

Neville hastily grabbed the porcupine quills and was throwing them into the cauldron while Harry double-checked the instructions.

"Wait! You have to take the cauldron off –"

"BANG!"

Their cauldron emitted a noise like a small canon, before melting into a twisted glob and spewing the potion all over Neville and the desk. Neville whimpered in pain as boils appeared everywhere the potion had touched

The potion ran off the table and spread over the floor, causing the students to jump up onto their stools to protect their feet. The bits of porcupine quills Dudley had thrown at Harry were making the failed potion erupt into little fountains whenever they came in contact.

Snape whirled around with a look of utter disgust on his face.

"Idiot boy!" he snapped as he vanished the potion, "your ineptitude is astonishing! You, Finnigan, escort Longbottom to the hospital wing."

"I can take him," Harry offered. He cringed as Snape's dark eyes bore into his. He shouldn't have drawn attention to himself.

"You," Snape hissed at Harry, "Have already done enough damage! As if wasting expensive ingredients wasn't enough, sabotaging a potion is something I will not put up with!"

"I didn't sabotage the potion! And I didn't even waste potions ingredients!" Harry was truly angry, and rather worried about Neville.

"Then I suppose the quills just decided to waltz off of your desk while you weren't looking then?" Snape sneered sarcastically.

"Dudley threw them at me!"

Snape quirked his eyebrow. "And did anyone actually _see_ Mister Dursley do this." He looked around the room – nobody spoke. "I thought not".

Harry was fuming. He _knew_ people had seen Dudley! It's not like Dudley was actually capable of being subtle!

"Five points from Slytherin," Snape said, malice glinting in his cold eyes, "for deliberately sabotaging a potion, wasting ingredients and lying to a Professor."

The class went absolutely silent. Nobody had heard of Snape taking a single point from his house, let alone five at once! Even if Draco hadn't been against him from the first day, Harry was pretty sure he was going to be actively shunned now, if the glares from the Slytherins in the room meant anything. On a plus side, this was a class he wouldn't have to try to do poorly in – between being paired with Neville and having Snape as a professor, Harry was sure he'd be getting bottom marks regardless of how hard he tried.

Harry visited Neville in the infirmary that afternoon. He was still in a foul mood, and sporting a couple new bruises from vengeful Slytherin hexes

"S-Snape really took points from _S-Slytherin_?!"

Nobody had stopped by to visit Neville, so he hadn't heard the gossip that was spreading like Fiendfyre through the school. Harry nodded miserably, rubbing a sore shoulder from getting "accidentally" pushed into a rather solid suit of armour.

"Well, cheer up!" Neville tried to make him feel better, "maybe the rest of the school will like you b-better! You'll probably be a hero to some of the Gryffindors!"

As it turned out, Neville was sort of right. Almost everyone still thought he must be REALLY horrible if even the Slytherins didn't like him, but there were two boys in Gryffindor who had decided that he was a legend.

"Harry!" Someone called out from behind him. That was unusual. The only one who called him Harry was Neville, and the voice wasn't his only friend's.

"Old pal!"

"Good chum!"

Two identical redheaded boys came up behind Harry and slung an arm over his shoulders. He immediately tensed up; nobody ever touched him unless it was to hurt him. But, it didn't seem like the boys were trying to hurt him.

"We've heard rumours-" started one of the boys,

"-that you got Snape to dock Slytherin points!" finished the other.

"Umm," Harry said, articulately.

"So we just wanted to let you know –"

"-that we think you're absolutely brilliant!" They spun around, so they were both facing a disoriented Harry.

"Even if you are-" one started,

"-a slimy Slytherin," they finished together.

"Thanks? I guess?" Harry had no idea how to act around these two. They were unlike anyone he'd ever met.

"Anytime!" they chorused.

"By the way-"

"-I'm Fred-"

"-and I'm George!"

"Ta-ta!" they both exclaimed as they walked off.

"I thought I was Fred..." Harry thought he heard one say to the other as they disappeared down the hall. Harry blinked. He felt a bit like he'd been run over by a steamroller; they must be the infamous Weasley twins. He'd heard horror stories about them while he sat inconspicuously in the corner of the common room. He had no idea which of them was which, but at least they were nicer than their younger brother!

He couldn't help but smile in bemusement as he went about the rest of his day. He hummed happily as he did his homework outside in the afternoon sunshine. It was good to know someone was on his side for once, even if it was for something he hadn't meant to happen.

A/N: Nanettez pointed out a small error in the last chapter... Dudley's rooming with 4 other boys, not 3 - my bad! It has been fixed!


	9. Flying Lessons

CHAPTER 9

"Hey loser!" Harry looked up with a start from his table at the library to see Dudley looming over him.

"What do you want," Harry sighed. He had thought Dudley would never willingly come into the library, especially on the weekend.

"Granger won't do my homework for me," Dudley whined at Harry. Harry wasn't surprised - Granger was clearly a teacher's pet that wouldn't want to break rules, especially if she thought it was cheating. "You do it."

"What if I don't want to," Harry replied.

Dudley screwed up his face in thought. Harry could practically see the rusty wheels turning in his mind through his piggy eyes.

"I'll tell mom and dad!" he decided. He reached over and grabbed Harry's arm and twisted it painfully. "And I'll beat you up. We haven't played Harry hunting in a while." He gave Harry a grin that was probably supposed to be intimidating, but really made him look like a hippopotamus with indigestion.

"Ouch, fine," Harry gasped. He'd done his cousin's homework for ages, so had been expecting this to happen sooner or later. "I need to see your writing."

"Why?" Dudley questioned. "You already know how my writing looks."

"It'll look different now that we have to use a quill."

"Oh," said Dudley. He kicked Harry under the table as he grabbed a crumpled piece of parchment out of his knapsack.

"You better have it done for me by tomorrow, or else," Dudley threatened weakly. He almost knocked Harry of his chair as he barged past in a hasty exit from the library.

Harry looked at Dudley's writing; it was even messier than before. Apparently Dudley hadn't bothered to learn how to use a quill properly. Harry was very grateful that Neville had helped him out on the train, so he could at least avoid all the inkblots Dudley left all over the page, even if his writing still wasn't the nicest.

A charms essay was first on the to-do list. Harry pulled out his charms text and got to work. He decided to do Dudley's first, and aim for a B, since nobody would expect Dudley to do any better than that. Then he'd do his own, making sure it wasn't quite as good, but good enough to get a passing grade and everyone would be happy!

It was a beautiful day outside. Harry gazed longingly out the window, but knew how mean students could be with no teachers watching. In the library, the fierce gaze of Madam Pince kept students scared enough that they wouldn't attempt more than the occasional glare or subtle hex.

He may not be trying to do well in school, but he did want to survive it. He resolved to learn how to protect himself as yet another stinging hex made him bite his tongue to keep from yelling out and getting thrown out of the library.

The second week of classes went much the same as the first, but along with his double homework load, thanks to Dudley, this week there were mandatory flying lessons for the first years. As with potions, the Slytherins were to be paired with the Gryffindors - a fact that Harry was dreading.

It was a nice day, Harry had to admit as they trooped down to the field with varying degrees of apprehension and excitement. Harry was a little more on the apprehensive side himself; he'd definitely be at a disadvantage, since the students from wizarding families were all bragging about how they'd been flying for years.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked Neville, who looked positively green.

"M-my g-gran says that f-f-flying is dangerous," Harry was informed.

"That's because it is," Granger, the bushy-haired bookworm from Gryffindor, cut in. "I read that kids have even _died_ at Hogwarts from broom accidents!" Harry stared at her. Was this her idea of helping?

"Were any of those in a first year flying lesson?" he asked her.

"Well, no... They happened to be playing Quiddich at the time," she admitted.

"See?" Harry told Neville, "flying lessons are perfectly safe." He tried to steer them away from Granger, but she obliviously followed them.

Each student stood beside a broom while the flying coach, Madam Hooch, observed them critically. Her no-nonsense attitude reminded Harry of Professor McGonagall.

"Hold your hand over your broomstick and say 'up'" she coached the students.

Harry's broom leapt up to his hand, but others weren't so lucky. Ron's smacked him in the face, much to Dudley's amusement, while Neville and Hermione's hardly moved at all.

"You can do it!" Harry told Neville, hoping his encouragement may help the nervous boy succeed.

Eventually everyone managed to get their broom into their hands, so Madam Hooch could go around to individually help them hold it correctly. Finally Madam Hooch decided they were ready to give flying a proper go:

"On my whistle , you may push of _gently_ from the ground."

Harry looked over to smile at Neville, when he realized that his friend was already shakily making his way into the air.

"Get down here!" Madam Hooch snapped angrily, "I said to wait until the whistle!"

"I c-can't make it stop!" Cried Neville as he drifted higher and higher. Harry watched in horror as Neville slowly lost his balance and ended up falling off his broom. He screamed as he fell, then moaned in a crumpled heap as Madam Hooch rushed over.

"It's not that bad," they heard her say, "you'll just need a trip to the hospital wing and you'll be right as rain!"

She turned back to the class and narrowed her eyes threateningly. "Don't even think about flying until I return," she warned them as she walked the crying boy into the castle.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Malfoy burst into laughter.

"Did you see his face!" he cackled, "I bet he'll never touch a broomstick again!"

Harry tried to ignore him, which Granger was making fairly easy.

"I _told_ you that brooms were dangerous!" She was screeching in his ear. "He could have DIED!"

Harry was working on slowly inching away from her when Malfoy caught his attention once again. He was picking something shiny and round off the ground.

"Look what that fat lump dropped," he crowed to his friends.

"Give that back!" Granger said, snapping her attention away from Harry as she walked over to him, "it's not yours!"

"Yeah!" Weasley echoed, eager to make a stand against the Slytherin.

"What if I don't want to," Malfoy goaded as he mounted his broom.

"Ron'll take it from you!" Dudley decided, cutting Granger off from saying she'd go get a teacher.

"I'll what?" retorted Ron as he looked back to his friend.

"You've flown before, you can get it back," Dudley told him, hoping to incite Malfoy further.

"Oh, right," Ron seemed uncertain.

"Well then," Malfoy seemed pleased, "come and get it!" He pushed from the ground. After a moment of hesitation from Ron, and a light shove from Dudley, Ron flew up to meet the blonde boy in the air.

"Give it here, Malfoy."

"I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find instead," Malfoy taunted, "catch it if you can!"

He threw the ball past Ron. Ron turned his broom around in an effort to do just that, but Harry could tell that he was going to be too slow to catch it.

Harry made his way over to where the ball had smashed onto the ground. Puffs of red smoke were coming from the large fragments of glass. He picked them up, planning on returning them to Neville when he visited the infirmary.

He turned around as he heard a very angry Professor McGonagall yelling at the boys to get out of the air.

"I don't know what possessed you to do something so foolish!" she chastised Draco and Ron as they sheepishly got off of their brooms. "I don't suppose you have an excuse for yourselves, do you?"

"Malfoy stole Neville's Remembrall!" Ron accused.

"Is this true?" Professor McGonagall pressed her lips together as she looked to Malfoy. Malfoy stared at the ground and didn't say anything.

"I see," she muttered angrily. "5 points from each of you, and detention. I'll be informing your mother, Mister Weasley, and your head of house, Mister Malfoy."

"And look!" Dudley pitched in, "Harry broke it! He always gets really jealous when other people have things that he doesn't."

Harry's eyes widened in surprise. Professor McGonagall looked at him, then back to Dudley in suspicion.

"No he didn't!" Hermione retorted. "Malfoy threw it and it broke when it hit the ground!"

"I don't tolerate lying," Professor McGonagall told them sternly. "Well? Tell me the truth!" She looked sternly at the rest of the first years. The Gryffindors shuffled their feet, and none of them met her eye. They didn't want to rat on one of their own, but they also didn't want to lie to their head of house. The Slytherins were also torn; they'd be happy to get a Gryffindor in trouble, especially Dudley Dursley, but that would mean they'd have to admit that Malfoy broke the Remembrall.

McGonagall sighed, "Fine then, Mister Potter and Mister Dursley will both join the others in detention. If anyone is willing to tell the truth at a later date, they will earn two points for their house and get their classmate out of an unwarranted detention."

Madam Hooch returned from the infirmary shortly and was updated by Professor McGonagall. She turned angrily to the four boys.

"Brooms down. Now!" She commanded them. "None of you will be flying this lesson. You may return to your dormitories!"

They left, with Professor McGonagall angrily escorting them. Harry was upset; the broom had felt so natural in his hands that he had really been looking forward to flying, even after Neville got hurt. He glared at Dudley who stuck his tongue out behind the professor's back.

Harry didn't bother trying to tell the truth. In his experience, nobody cared what had really happened when he was involved. He did want to give the broken Remembrall back to Neville though, so as they were heading down to the dungeons he quietly asked:

"Excuse me, would it be possible to check on Neville in the infirmary?"

Professor McGonagall eyed him critically.

"I want to give him the pieces and make sure he's okay," he explained.

His teacher gave him a small smile. "Very well," she allowed, "two points to Slytherin for helping a friend in need."

Harry gave her a startled smile back. Did this mean she believed him and not Dudley? Maybe the teachers here were smarter than back in elementary school after all! He thought about that as he walked into the infirmary, a small ray of hope blooming inside of him.

"Hey Neville, how are you feeling?"

"Been better," Neville replied feebly from a bed. His arm was in a sling and he looked really uncomfortable.

"You, uh, dropped your Remembrall," Harry told him.

"Oh! Did you grab it for me?"

"I'm really sorry," Harry said as Neville's face fell, "Malfoy stole it and it got broken. But I brought you the pieces." He awkwardly laid them out on the bed.

Neville picked up a fragment of glass with a glum expression. "My gran just got it for me," he told Harry sadly.

The boys chatted a bit, trying to catch up. They hardly got to see each other, since their only class together was potions, and considering how badly that had gone the week before, Harry doubted they'd get to talk about much other than not blowing up the cauldron.

"Why does D-Dudley hate you so much?" Neville asked as Harry mentioned his cousin. Dudley was a bully to pretty much everyone, but Neville had noticed that he was especially mean to Harry.

"He just... doesn't like me," Harry replied evasively. He wondered whether he should tell Neville that his aunt and uncle hated him as well. He had been so sure that the wizarding world would welcome him with open arms, but it turned out they were just like the muggle world: quick to judge and easy to persuade with some nasty rumours.

"It's just," Neville said softly, "he's telling some p-pretty nasty stories about you."

Harry glared down at the sheets. Knowing Dudley, he probably wasn't even coming up with the interesting rumours himself. He had a pretty limited roster of 'bad things Harry does', which was basically limited to 'Harry stole something', 'Harry tried to get me in trouble' or 'Harry's trying to get attention'. Unfortunately for Harry, other kids tended to extrapolate from this, and as the rumour spread, it would get twisted and exaggerated until Harry was suddenly taking down You-Know-Who with one hand behind his back while riding a Nundu. Why was it always Nundu's?

"I don't think they're true, of course," Neville assured him, in a half-questioning tone.

"Good." Harry replied. Neville looked taken-aback at his harsh tone.

"Sorry," Harry was quick to apologize. "It's just, when I learned I was going to Hogwarts I was so excited to get away from my family. They were a bit controlling."

Neville nodded, "Yeah, my g-gran can be pretty controlling too."

Harry guessed it probably wasn't exactly the same, but let Neville think what he wanted. "Dudley's always been a bit of a bully. I thought if I was in a different house than him, he'd leave me alone..."

"I never had friends before I came here and met you," Neville said after a long pause.

"Me neither," Harry said, relieved he wasn't the only one. The boys looked at each other and grinned. Dudley may have made a lot of the kids at school hate him, but at least he had Neville!

Meanwhile, in Gryffindor tower, Dudley and Ron were fighting.

"Why'd you let Granger get me in trouble?" Dudley whined at Ron in the otherwise empty common room.

"I'm not daft enough to lie to a Professor!" Ron retorted, his ears and cheeks turning pink. "Besides, it really wasn't Potter that did it that time!"

"Yeah, but we could have gotten him in trouble!"

"You shouldn't have said anything!" Ron yelled, "It's your own fault you have detention!"

Dudley turned red with anger and rushed at Ron, tackling the surprised boy to the ground.

"Gerroff!" Ron struggled under Dudley's considerable weight.

"What on EARTH are you two doing?!" The boys froze and looked up to see Granger standing in the entrance to the common room. She had left the flying lesson as soon as she was allowed. The rest of the first years were still out having fun on the brooms, but Hermione had decided that flying was really not for her.

Dudley struggled to his feet while Ron lay gasping on the floor.

"Why'd you rat us out, Granger?" Dudley asked. His threatening tone was severely handicapped by his heavy breathing from the brief physical exertion.

"You were lying to Professor McGonagall!" Hermione responded prudishly.

"You don't have always have to be such a teacher's pet," Ron said in an exasperated tone.

"Yeah, Granger, what's your problem?" Dudley chimed in. "Maybe if you were less of a brown-noser you'd actually have some friends!"

He and Ron burst into laughter as Hermione started to sniff and ran up the stairs to her dorm. They sat down to play some exploding snap, their argument forgotten. It had taken Dudley a couple of days, but he'd eventually decided that _some_ wizarding games were okay, if only because he was extremely bored without all his computer games and the telly!

Hermione didn't show up for dinner that night, but when they were all in the common room, she was there reading a book, pretending nothing had happened. Ron was playing chess with Dean, while Dudley stuffed his face with treats his mother had sent him. He may have given in to playing snap, but he was still extremely suspicious of wizarding desserts.

Hermione looked up to give Dudley a slightly disgusted look. There was something she'd been meaning to ask him though, so she refrained from commenting on his eating habits.

"Remember that break-in at Gringotts from last week?" she asked.

Dudley grunted, but she had captured Ron's attention, "Yeah!" he exclaimed, "I can't believe someone got away with it! It's lucky the vault had just been emptied."

"Well didn't you say Dumbledore asked Hagrid to pick something up for him on Harry's birthday?" Dudley loved telling the story of how his dad had stood up to the giant, carefully omitting the part where his dad got a tail.

"So?" he mumbled around a mouth of cake.

"Well, that's the same day Gringotts was robbed!" Hermione exclaimed, "What if he was the one that emptied the vault!"

"That's a bit of a long shot..." Ron mumbled as he put Dean in checkmate.

"Well, think about it," Hermione was insistent. "What if that's what's hidden on the third floor! It would make sense for it to be something valuable if Dumbledore thought even the bank wasn't safe enough!"

"Huh." Ron considered it. "Hogwarts is probably the next safest place to Gringotts. Mostly 'cause Dumbledore's here..."

Hermione gave him a triumphant look and started on a rant about how amazing Dumbledore was.

"Ugh, shut it," Dudley stopped her by pulling a strand of her bushy hair that was within his reach. "Your voice is so annoying!"

"Ouch!" Hermione squealed, "Why are you so MEAN?" She grabbed her book and retreated to a safe distance, rubbing her sore head as she went. Dudley snickered and reached into his box of goodies to pull out a package of sweets.

Ron went back to setting up the rematch chess game with a frown. Granger was _really_ annoying, but Dudley was acting a little like a bully. She had actually made a good point. He wondered what could have possibly been in the vault, and was so distracted that he actually came close to losing against Dean! It was only due to an indignant knight's warning that he didn't accidentally sacrifice his king.

Dudley's thoughts drifted away from the mystery of the third floor almost immediately. He needed his mum to send him more chocolate bars - he was out already.


	10. The Mountain Troll

CHAPTER 10

It was October 31st and Harry was in a quiet mood all day. Ever since he'd learned that his parents had died protecting him from You-Know-Who – who's name Harry actually didn't know still – he'd decided that he'd spend the day mourning their loss instead of dressing up and getting candy. Besides, he'd never been allowed to trick-or-treat so it wasn't a great day to begin with.

Dudley was feeling a little apprehensive. He normally loved Halloween, but Ron had been telling him about the horrible tricks his twin brothers had played on him in the past, and he still refused to touch magical sweets. At least his parents had promised to send him some normal food in the mail, so he wouldn't be left out.

He was daydreaming in charms class while their annoyingly squeaky professor tried to teach them a new charm: Wingardium Leviosa. It was a stupid charm – they were using it to make feathers hover in the air. What good was that?

He was in danger of falling asleep when the classroom burst into a flurry of activity, as the students got ready to give the spell a go. He groggily looked up at the feather sitting in front of him.

"Wingardyum Levyosuh," he mumbled, jabbing at the feather. It didn't move. He gave it a glare. Seamus was sitting beside him, and wasn't having much better luck. Neither of them were very good at charms class, but at least Dudley didn't have such explosive tendencies.

True to form, Seamus' feather burst into flames when the boy got impatient, nearly singeing his eyebrows off. Dudley snickered at the panicking boy, who eventually managed to put the fire out with only slight damage to his robes.

At the table beside him, Ron had the misfortune of being stuck with Granger. He was swinging his wand around, trying to get the charm to work when he nearly knocked into her.

"Watch where you're swinging that thing!" She chastised. Ron made a face and went back to his exaggerated movements.

"Just stop!" she commanded. "You're saying it wrong anyways." She tried to correct his pronunciation.

"Do it yourself," Ron grouched as he failed yet again to make his feather move. She shot him a glance, then pointed at her feather.

Swish, flick: "Wingardium Leviosa," she clearly intoned, smiling as her feather flew off the desk.

After class, Ron quickly made his way over to Dudley.

"She's a nightmare!" he complained loudly.

"Yeah, it's no wonder nobody can stand her!" Dudley sympathized, shooting a victorious glare at the girl in question, who was walking close enough to hear them. Hermione dashed past them, and Ron noticed she was crying. He felt a little uncomfortable, but with Dudley talking about food again, Ron quickly forgot about it. She'd be fine; after all, it shouldn't really be a surprise to her that she had no friends!

Ron was a little worried when she didn't show up to their next class, but Dudley didn't seem bothered, so he let it go. He heard some of the other Gryffindor girls saying she was crying in the bathroom later as they were heading down to the Halloween feast.

"D'you reckon we should apologize?" he asked Dudley as they walked down the stairs to the Great Hall.

Dudley shrugged, "whatever."

As they were about to enter the hall, Malfoy and his goons brushed past them roughly.

"Watch it!" Ron spat, immediately forgetting about his moral dilemma.

"Oh, sorry Weasley," Malfoy sneered. "I didn't see you there."

"Sure you didn't," Ron muttered back sarcastically as he pulled his wand out of his robes. Dudley mimicked him.

"Careful Weasley," Malfoy taunted, "I'd hate to see you get in trouble again!" Malfoy had already managed to set them up on multiple occasions. First he'd challenged them to a duel after curfew and not shown up, after which they got caught trying to get into a door in the forbidden corridor by Filch and his cat. They had gotten into a LOT of trouble for that, no matter how much they swore they didn't know they were on the third floor.

Since then, Malfoy hadn't managed anything that bad, but he'd blown up their cauldron's multiple times in potions, and gotten Dudley, Ron and whoever else was with them, in trouble for fighting in the halls so many times they'd lost count.

Dudley growled and took a step towards his second least favourite person (Harry was still up at number one).

"Is there a problem here?" McGonagall asked as she walked towards them on her way into the hall.

"We were trying to get to the feast but these Gryffindors took their wands out and started threatening us!" Draco told her with wide eyes.

"No! He started it!" Ron was quick to add.

McGonagall sighed as she looked at the boys. Her Gryffindors had their wands out, pointed at other boys, while the Slytherins didn't.

"5 points from Gryffindor for pointing wands at other students," she stated. "Get along to the feast now!" It was a good thing Hermione Granger was doing so well in her classes or Gryffindor would surely be losing the house cup.

* * *

Harry was sitting at the Slytherin table, pushing food around his plate. He saw Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle coming towards him with smug looks on their faces. A quick look at the angry face of Weasley and his cousin gave him all the information he needed. He was happy, in an odd sort of way, that they fought so much; As long as they were mad at each other, they forgot about him.

Later in the meal, Malfoy was bragging about something his father had sent in the post. Harry was, as usual, only paying half-attention.

"Isn't it nice to have parents who actually want you," Malfoy smirked as he locked eyes with Harry. Harry hadn't really been eating anyways, so he stood up with a scowl and left the meal. He heard Malfoy and the other first years laughing behind his back, and could feel angry tears pricking behind his eyes as he stormed out.

As soon as he was alone in the hallway, he began to cry. He knew Malfoy was a prat, but did he really have to gloat about having parents on the day Harry's had died? He leaned against a wall and stayed there for a while, letting the tears streak down his face.

He thought he heard a noise in the distance, and quickly rubbed at his face to remove the tears. On the way back to the common room, he ducked into the washroom to wash his face and blow his nose. He was just drying off when he heard a girl's scream, causing him to quickly rush out and look for the source of the sound.

There was a clatter, and then another scream from the girl's washroom. Harry rushed in and stopped dead as he saw a huge monster with a giant club taking up most of the space in the room. It was raising its club above its head and paying no attention to Harry. A small movement caught his eye – Hermione Granger from Gryffindor was huddled under the sink.

Before Harry could even think, he yelled out to the creature, "hey you! Get away from her!" It turned around with a puzzled look on its ugly face, the club still raised above its head.

Harry's mind was racing. He'd only been in the wizarding world for two months! He hardly knew any spells, let alone something that would take down something this big.

Granger made a whimpering noise. The troll, which had taken a lumbering step towards Harry immediately turned around and swung its club down onto one of the sinks. Granger screamed and shielded her face from the flying porcelain.

"NO!" Harry shouted. If the club had come down one sink further, Granger would have been crushed. He had to do something! He thought back – he'd been hit by quite a few hexes, so he should be able to remember at least one of them!

He tried the jelly-legs jinx, aiming at the creature's legs. Absolutely nothing happened. Harry didn't know whether he'd done it wrong, or it just had no effect, but there was no time to try again; the club was being raised in the air, and Granger still hadn't moved.

"Stop crying and MOVE!" he screamed at the girl while he threw the heaviest rubble he could. It bounced off the back of the heavy clothing, not even making the creature slow down in the slightest. He aimed a bit higher, and managed to land some heavier pieces of sink on the back of its head.

That got the monster's attention. It put down the club and reached up a large hand to scratch the back of its head, like Harry would scratch after being hit with a small wad of paper. The blow obviously hadn't hurt it, but it had gotten its attention! It slowly turned around and began lumbering after Harry.

Harry tossed a couple pieces of wood at it, to make sure it was focused on him, before he backed out of the washroom, the thundering steps of the creature echoing off the bathroom tiles. As soon as they were out of the small room, it decided to pursue Harry in earnest. He began running away as fast as he could, almost tripping over the hem of his robes. His spells obviously didn't have any impact on it, so his only chance was to treat it like he would Dudley: run away as fast as possible and hope it was too slow and stupid to catch up to him.

He'd underestimated just how long the creature's legs were. Its strides may be slow, but each step took it closer to Harry. He was panting and desperately trying to think of anything he could do to get away, as he rounded a corner and ran into someone at full speed. It was someone much larger than him, since he didn't take them down, but instead rebounded off and fell clumsily into the wall.

He groggily looked up to see a furious Professor Snape rounding on him. No wonder he hadn't knocked the man over – he seemed perpetually ready to duel! Just then, the monster that had been chasing him rounded the corner. Snape whirled around and began attacking the creature.

Harry completely forgot that he was sore and afraid. Even though he hated the man, he had to admit that his head of house was incredibly good with his wand. He let out such a fast volley of spells that Harry could hardly tell where one started and the next began. None seemed to do much damage, but at least it wasn't able to do any damage to the professor either.

Professor Snape seemed to pause for a second, and glance at Harry. His face was unreadable as he shot off a sickly green curse. It hit the creature on the forehead, and it collapsed instantly, shaking the hall as it came crashing down.

The sound of running footsteps echoed down the corridor as the dust was settling. Professor McGonagall and Professor Quirrell ran around the corner with their wands out, just as Snape had turned his attention back to Harry.

"You imbecile!" he was practically hissing, "What were you thinking, provoking a fully grown mountain troll?" His dark eyes bore into Harry's. He tried to think of how to answer.

"Severus!" Professor McGonagall cried as she skirted around the dead troll. "What on earth happened?" Quirrell had taken one look at the scene and promptly leaned against the wall, clutching his heart.

" _Potter,_ " Snape spat as if it were a bad word, "decided that instead of going with the rest of the students to the safety of the common room, he would provoke a troll instead. Of all the foolish, arrogant stunts to pull..." He stopped as Professor McGonagall gave him a warning look.

Harry was about to argue that he hadn't been looking for the troll; he hadn't even known about the troll, but decided against it as he looked up into the hard eyes of his professor. McGonagall had her lips set into a thin white line.

"I see that you have everything under control. I assume you can deal with Mister Potter?"

"I assure you, I will deal with Mister Potter most adequately," Snape drawled.

"I'll inform the headmaster," McGonagall said as she walked briskly away.

As she left, Snape turned back to Harry.

"Twenty points from Slytherin, for the worse judgment I have ever had the misfortune of encountering in a first year. You can be sure that the rest of the house will be informed of the reason for the sudden drop in points." Harry flinched; twenty points was a lot! He was sure his fellow Slytherins wouldn't be very happy with him.

"Furthermore, you will have detention once a week until Christmas. If you don't manage to ameliorate your behaviour before then, you can expect these to continue into the new year." Harry didn't mind this part of the punishment nearly as much. Sure, Snape either made him do disgusting potions preparations or clean things without his wand, but it was fairly similar to what he'd done for years at the Dursley's and it kept him out of sight from the students that hated him.

"Now get up, boy," Snape commanded. Harry was surprised to find himself still on the floor. He was shaking quite badly, and wasn't entirely sure he was capable of standing, but didn't want to provoke Snape any worse.

"Granger!" he said quietly as he remembered the reason he'd met the troll in the first place.

"If you have something to say, speak up."

"It's just," Harry started, "Hermione Granger was in the bathroom when the troll attacked." He'd given up on defending his actions to Snape, but he wasn't ready to abandon the girl he'd left cowering under a sink.

Snape's face twisted into a look Harry couldn't decipher, before he stalked towards the bathroom the troll had come from. Harry hesitated, then decided that Snape probably wanted him to follow along. He almost had to run to catch up to the tall man's long strides. He took another look at Quirrell as they passed him. He truly was a useless Defense teacher. Harry wondered if he'd even notice if he stopped coming to class. He could definitely use a break from the throbbing headaches he kept getting.

"Granger?" Snape called out as they neared the girl's washroom.

"Professor?" came a small voice. Granger was sitting on the floor in a heap amongst the rubble from the troll attack. Her glassy gaze shifted up as Harry and Snape entered the room. She jumped up when she noticed Harry, and ran over to him to wrap her arms around him in a strong hug. Harry tensed, not used to physical contact.

"Harry! You're alive!" she exclaimed. She was crying again, but looked very relieved. "I thought the troll would get you for sure!"

"What exactly were you doing in a washroom with a troll Miss Granger?" Snape questioned, sounding like he didn't much care about her answer one way or another.

"I, uh, had to go to the bathroom during the feast. The troll came in and attacked me! If Harry hadn't shown up to save me, I'd probably be dead."

Snape could tell she wasn't telling him the full truth. She was probably hiding something to protect Harry – just the sort of foolish action a Gryffindor would take.

"Ten points from Gryffindor, for provoking a dangerous creature."

Snape led the students to the hospital wing in silence. They both had scrapes and were shaking; besides, he just wanted to retreat to his chambers. As he raised his arm to rap on the door to Madam Pomfrey's office, his robes shifted to expose his leg. As soon as he was gone, and the matron of the hospital wing was done fussing over them, Hermione turned to Harry.

"Did you see his leg?" she whispered to Harry. He was in the bed beside hers, and although they were supposed to be sleeping, she was still feeling wide awake.

"Hmm?" Harry was feeling quite sleepy himself.

"His trousers were ripped, and there was blood on his leg!"

"Mm?" Harry was trying to pay attention, but he was already halfway unconscious.

"It looked almost as though a dog bit him! But that's odd, because there shouldn't be any dogs in Hogwarts." She trailed off for a minute, lost in thought. Harry started to breathe deeply.

"Unless!" she suddenly exclaimed, causing Harry to wake with a start, "Dursley and Weasley weren't lying!"

"Lying 'bout what?" Harry murmured drowsily.

"Malfoy set them up ages ago – he told them to duel him at midnight, but didn't show up. Anyways, Filch caught them on the forbidden corridor. They said that they were trying to get through a locked door, when they heard thunderous growls coming through it! Dudley said it sounded like his aunt's dog, only much, much bigger."

Harry thought about it for a while. It didn't sound like the sort of story Dudley would be capable of inventing. Maybe if it had been Dudley running into a Slytherin and taking him down with nothing buy his fists, but this was much too creative.

"I wonder what it's guarding," Harry muttered, half to himself.

Hermione quickly filled him in on her theory that Hagrid had taken whatever it was from the vault on Harry's birthday. It seemed a little far-fetched, but maybe if he talked to Hagrid about it he'd be able to confirm or disprove the idea. He hadn't spoken to the half-giant since that day, and he really wanted to thank him for the best birthday present ever!

However, any thoughts of dogs or trolls or piggy relatives were quickly pushed from his mind as he finally succumbed to sleep.

A/N: Today I learned how to put page breaks on fanfiction! That means there won't be any more of the awkward asterisks. I also changed the rating to T, mostly to be safe for the next chapter.


	11. Friends, Enemies and Repercussions

CHAPTER 11

As soon as Hermione was allowed out of the infirmary the next morning, she went straight to the Gryffindor common room.

"Oi, Granger!" Weasley stopped her before she had a chance to get to her dorm.

"Yes?" she asked, a little impatiently.

"Where've you been? Nobody's seen you since before the feast last night!"

Hermione paused, not sure she wanted to tell him about what had happened the night before; it had been partly his fault that she'd been in the bathroom, after all. He looked so concerned though, despite his borderline rude tone that she decided to tell him about her run-in with the troll. By the time her story had finished, practically everyone in the common room was clumped around her to hear it.

"Harry potter fought a full-grown mountain troll and _lived_?" one boy exclaimed.

"Well, he lured it out of the-"

"That's so romantic!" Lavender Brown sighed.

"I don't think it was supposed to be ro-"

"I bet he lost a wicked number of points from Slytherin if Snape caught him!" one of the twins cackled gleefully.

Hermione gave up on talking – they obviously weren't listening to her anymore. As the students went back to what they were doing, Ron told her that he was glad she was okay. His ears turned pink as she beamed at him, then glanced around to make sure nobody else was listening to them.

"Guess what I saw in the infirmary," she whispered conspiratorially to Ron.

"What?"

"Professor Snape had a bite mark on his leg!" She rolled her eyes as the redhead gave her a look that clearly said 'so what?'.

"It was a bigger bite mark than I've ever seen," she continued in a hushed voice. "It would have taken a very large dog to make it!"

Hermione's eyes were sparkling as Ron gasped. His eyes widened as he processed the latest bit of information.

"You don't mean..." he breathed.

"Yes," she confirmed, "I can only think of one place in Hogwarts that could possibly have a creature dangerous enough to hurt Professor Snape!"

"The third floor corridor!" Ron squeaked, "But why would he go there?"

"I don't know," Hermione huffed. She didn't like not knowing things, and this was one of the very infrequent times where she didn't have a clue how to find the answer. "We'll have to keep our eyes open."

Ron nodded and noticed Dudley looking over at them. He quickly rushed off to tell his friend what Hermione had told him.

Dudley had been listening to the story as well, but hadn't bothered to get up off the couch he was sprawled on. He'd seen Ron say something to Granger that made her smile and glared at them. Of course Harry would save the most annoying person in the school! He'd probably done it just because Dudley didn't like her, and Harry always had to ruin everything. The next time anyone complained about her, he'd make sure to remind them how she probably would've been pulled from Hogwarts if she'd gotten a little banged up by the troll, so if Harry hadn't intervened they would've probably been rid of her.

Dudley had a little bit of doubt that Harry had meant to save her at all though – he was such a wimp that he probably high-tailed it as soon as he even saw the troll, and accidentally got it to follow him.

As soon as Ron got to him, Dudley started talking. He was intent on setting him straight about his cousin. His parents had specifically told him not to let the freak get away with anything, and unlike _some_ people, he wasn't a disappointment!

"I dunno, mate," Ron said skeptically when Dudley told him his theory of what had actually happened. "I don't think I've ever heard Granger tell a lie."

Dean turned around, "Well she didn't actually see Potter take on the troll after they left the bathroom."

"Yeah," Seamus agreed, "and I know how fuzzy the exact details can get in the spur of the moment." He absentmindedly reached up to smooth his eyebrows, which were singed after yesterday's incident with the feather.

The boys seemed to agree, and the conversation ended. Dudley was happy that the other boys were starting to doubt his cousin again. Dean and Seamus moved back to the chess game they'd been ignoring since Hermione's interruption, allowing Ron to fill Dudley in on what Hermione had told him.

"Of course Snape's sticking his greasy nose where it doesn't belong!" Dudley proclaimed. "He's the _leader_ of the slimy snakes!"

"Don't you think we should maybe do something?" Ron asked. Dudley shot him a withering look. There was no way he was going against Snape, first of all, because the man was obviously way more powerful than him. Plus, he had no desire to get mauled by a giant dog, if that was really what they had heard behind the locked door. Maybe he'd make Harry do something.

While Hermione was telling all of her housemates about the troll incident, Harry was doing his best to avoid the rest of the Slytherins. He had no doubt that they'd noticed the drop in points overnight, and from his absence would correctly blame him.

Hermione had still been fast asleep when he'd woken up and quietly left the infirmary. He was pretty sure that he was supposed to get cleared by Madam Pomfrey, but hadn't wanted to wake her so early. One of the first things he'd picked up from the boys in his dorm was how to tell time without needing a watch. He couldn't ask them to teach him, of course, since they would have just laughed at him, but between stealthily observing them and looking up the charm in the library he'd managed to teach himself.

He succeeded in making himself scarce until he was about to leave the common room to go to breakfast.

"POTTER!" a voice barked out. Harry flinched and turned around. He knew that tone, and it was not a sign of good things to come.

He was right. The two prefects were glaring at him, their arms folded firmly over their chests. They were flanked by a coupe more angry-looking older students, all of whom had their wands out and pointed at him. Harry's mouth went dry as he quashed the urge to flee; he'd long ago learned that running inevitably made the outcome worse.

"We had an _interesting_ conversation with Professor Snape last night," the girl prefect informed him. Harry blanched. He'd been half-heartedly hoping that Snape wouldn't tell anyone about the troll incident.

"You have been warned that we take disobedience very seriously in this house," the boy prefect growled. "We expect all Slytherins to behave in a manner becoming to our house – NOT to go off like a foolish Gryffindor and attack dangerous creatures!"

Harry knew that there was no use arguing that he hadn't meant for it to happen. Arguing only made punishments worse with uncle Vernon, so why would it be any different here?

"We're going to make sure you don't forget your place in the future," the girl prefect sneered. One of the boys beside her cracked his knuckles as they all took a step towards him, cornering him at the edge of the common room. Harry's eyes darted back and forth, trying to find him some escape route. But these students weren't Dudley's gang: they made sure that he was well and truly trapped with no hope of getting around them.

The prefects glanced at each other, before casting a spell Harry hadn't heard before simultaneously. He tensed and squeezed his eyes shut as they rushed towards him. His eyes flew open in surprise as he felt himself levitating off the ground. He flailed his legs in surprise, which made one of the students laugh.

"Flail all you want, Potter," he laughed, "It won't do you any good!"

They stuck him to the wall and proceeded to bombard him with some nasty stinging hexes and other spells that made it feel like he was being punched repeatedly. He tried not to yell out, but couldn't stop the tears streaming down his face.

The boy prefect held up his hand to stop the attack.

"I hope you've learned your lesson," he told Harry sincerely. "We've won the house cup for the past seven years, and we will do _anything_ to stop an entitled first-year from undoing all of our hard work."

The girl prefect walked over to Harry and looked him straight in the eyes.

"If you don't want a repeat of this, I suggest you take our warning to heart – no more losing points!" She tapped him on the head with her wand, making it feel like an egg was being broken over his hair.

"One more thing." They sent a silencing charm at him so he couldn't make any noise before they left Harry in the deserted common room.

As soon as he was alone, Harry started struggling against the sticking charm, hoping he could break free. Unfortunately, it was too strong and he soon gave up. He was stuck there all through breakfast time. Luckily the pain from the stinging charms faded fairly quickly, and he was just left with the ache of many developing bruises.

Students began returning from the Great Hall, but none of them seemed to notice him. The tap on his head must have made him invisible or something, and since he couldn't make any noise, he couldn't get anyone's attention.

It was soon time for the first class of the day, and he was once again left alone in the common room. He amused himself by looking out of the windows; the Giant Squid was floating past, and Harry loved watching it swim around.

A sudden pop startled him, and he saw a small creature with abnormally large eyes and even larger ears appear in the middle of the room. It started dusting the fireplace, without glancing in his direction. Harry needed to get its attention! He rubbed his feet together, trying to get his shoes off. If they fell to the ground they'd hopefully get the creature's attention! Luckily, they were Dudley's old trainers and thus loose enough that one fell to the floor with a soft thump.

A pair of large eyes immediately snapped over to where he was. It looked at the wall Harry was stuck to with a confused expression over its face, before it snapped its fingers. By the surprised expression on its face, Harry guessed he was no longer invisible. With another snap of its fingers, he became unstuck and fell into a heap on the floor.

"Bindy is being very sorry!" the creature squeaked in horror.

Harry moaned. "No, it's okay, thanks for getting me down."

Bindy rushed over to him and shook his head as he saw a red mark on Harry's cheek from a stinging hex.

"Is those nasty Slytherin boys hexing smaller students again?" he asked.

"Um, I keep losing house points," Harry replied by means of explanation. "If you don't mind, what exactly are you?" He hoped he wasn't being rude.

"Bindy is being a house-elf. We works here for good master Dumbleydore!"

Harry giggled at the mispronunciation of Dumbledore's name.

"You is being late for class, young sir," Bindy told him earnestly. Harry groaned. He decided to skip his first class completely; He may not lose points if he stayed out of eyesight, but if he showed up this late, he would definitely get points docked, and he had no desire to be stuck to a wall again.

Later that day, Harry was in the library working on his and Dudley's homework when Neville found him. People had been staring and pointing at him all day – Granger had told the Gryffindors about the troll, so naturally the whole school knew about it before breakfast was even over.

"Hey Harry," he greeted as he glanced around to make sure Dudley and the rest of the Gryffindor boys weren't near them. They bullied him a lot more when they noticed he was with Harry, since being friends with a Slytherin was almost unheard of.

"Hey Neville." Neville had the uncomfortable look he got whenever he wanted to say something, but hadn't quite worked up the courage yet. Harry sighed as he set down his quill and gave the Gryffindor a pointed look.

Neville blushed. "Hermione said that you fought a t-troll?"

Harry made a face. "I didn't fight a troll," he clarified, "I distracted it, then ran as fast as possible in the opposite direction."

"Wow," Neville breathed. "I wish I was as brave as you."

"It wasn't brave, really. Anybody would've done the same thing."

Neville scoffed. Harry was always so modest.

"What happened after that?" he questioned. Hermione hadn't known what had become of the troll.

Harry told Neville how he'd literally run into Snape, and how the potions master had killed the troll. When he described the green spell to Neville, the boy went chalky white.

"Are you _sure_ it was green? And it killed the troll instantly?" he questioned intently.

Harry was surprised; He'd never seen Neville so serious before.

"Yeah, why?"

"Harry, I think that was the killing curse!"

Harry blinked. Well, yes, it had killed the troll, so it probably had been a killing curse. Neville saw Harry's blank look and realized that he didn't understand.

"That curse is one of the unforgivables! It's _illegal_! My gran told me about them. There's the killing curse, and the Imperio curse, which forces someone to do whatever you want, and then there's the C-Cruciatus curse."

Harry was shocked! Snape was really mean to him, sure, but now he was beginning to think that the man was actually evil. Why would someone like that be allowed to teach at a school full of children? He realized that Dumbledore was probably the one in charge of hiring professors, and once again wondered what the headmaster was thinking.

Hermione Granger walked into the library and headed straight for Harry, effectively ending the conversation. Harry grimaced; he wasn't her biggest fan, especially after she'd spread the troll story so quickly.

"Hi Harry!" she chirped brightly as she set her things down on the table.

"Uh, hi."

"What are you working on?" she asked, as she tried to glance at the books on the table.

"The charms essay."

Neville had just come to talk to Harry about the troll rumour, and didn't have any books out. He was also reeling from everything Harry had told him and knew he wouldn't be able to focus anyways.

"I th-think I'll head out now," he said as he shot an apologetic look at Harry. Hermione hardly noticed him leave as she was already craning her neck to try and see what Harry had written. She was in full-blown research mode, suggesting books and extra readings that she could help him find, when she suddenly wrinkled her nose and asked:

"Wait, isn't that Dursley's handwriting?"

Harry quickly tried to cover it with some other parchment, but she snatched it away from him.

"It IS! Harry! You aren't doing his homework for him, are you?" Her voice was raising so much in indignation that students at other tables were starting to look over at them. The librarian shot them a warning look, causing Hermione to quickly lower her voice to a harsh whisper.

"Fine, yes, it's Dudley's," Harry admitted. Hermione looked utterly horrified. "But believe me," he hissed frantically, trying to stop her forthcoming rant, "it's good for both of us!"

"But-"

"Please, Hermione, you don't know anything about my life."

"Sure I do!" Hermione gave him a surprised look. "I've read all about you, of course, and then Dursley's told all sorts of stories from back home." She was shocked when Harry actually growled at her.

"Don't believe everything Dursley tells you," Harry warned. He was really angry that Dudley had been turning people against him at school. He'd made enough enemies just by going to Slytherin! He calmed himself quickly, reminding himself that it wasn't Hermione's fault that there were rumours going around.

He was curious about which books Hermione had read about him though. It didn't seem very likely that she would have read the fictional books about him like the ones he'd seen in the second-hand bookstore in Diagon Alley. As it turned out, she had indeed skimmed over one or two of those books, but even though she almost always believed in what the books told her, she admitted to finding it difficult to believe some of the tales written about him.

Harry wasn't much in the mood to finish the homework after that, so he packed up his books and beat a hasty retreat from the annoying Gryffindor. The look she shot his parchment as he was putting it away clearly expressed her disapproval. As he was walking away she called out,

"See you later, Harry!"

Harry vaguely waved back. She was obviously not going to let up on him for doing Dudley's homework any time soon; he wondered whether he'd be able to avoid her, and shuddered to think of what would happen if she found out that he was making himself look worse than Dudley, or, heaven forbid, that he wasn't even showing his full capability.

It took a while for the buzz about the troll to die down, but eventually it was shoved to the back of people's minds. One person who wouldn't seem to forget about it was Hermione. She had decided that Harry was her new best friend and popped up everywhere he went

As he'd predicted, she had flipped out when she had figured out that Harry wasn't trying his best in class. Doing someone else's homework was bad enough, but not doing yours to the best of your ability, that was atrocious! Now, every time she saw Harry, she'd nag him nearly constantly to stop doing Dudley's work for him, and to try harder himself. It was getting so unbearable that he'd nearly snapped at her multiple times. He had to keep reminding himself that she was really very nice, when she wasn't bugging him about his homework.

Neville had been becoming better friends with Hermione, and since he was actually trying to do well in class, to prove to his gran that he wasn't actually a squib, he didn't mind her help. He was glad that the two of them could band together against Dudley. He was much meaner to them after they'd been hanging out with Harry, since he hated anyone Harry liked out of principle.

Harry had half-heartedly tried to convince his friends not to hang out with him where Dudley could see them a couple times, and was very relieved when they assured him that they wanted to be friends more than they wanted to be safer from Dudley and the rest of the Gryffindor boys. It made him feel like he could deal with anything – the bullying from Dudley, the continuing harassment from the rest of his house, even the unfair treatment from Snape – as long as he had someone on his side.

A/N: Wow, I've been busy these past few weeks! I was a couple chapters ahead, but over the past couple weeks I've completely caught up, so I'll be down to posting once a week, hopefully, until I have some free time again.


	12. Adventures in the Night

CHAPTER 12

Christmas was coming quickly, and the students were in high spirits as they packed their bags and prepared for a break in their studies. Even Harry was in a good mood because almost all of the Slytherins were going home, as well as Dudley, so he'd have a few pain-free weeks of freedom!

He hummed happily as he walked towards the Great Hall after class. Malfoy had been taunting him in potions about not having a home to go back to, but for once Harry didn't mind, since being at Hogwarts for Christmas would be loads better than having to stay with the Dursleys! He turned a corner and almost got a face full of Christmas tree. He squeaked in surprise, but quickly relaxed when he saw the concerned face of Hagrid peaking out over the boughs.

"Sorry bou' tha'," Hagrid said apologetically. He was pulling giant Christmas trees into the Great Hall in preparation for the impending holiday season.

"It's okay," Harry replied truthfully. "I wasn't watching where I was going!"

The two chatted amicably as they walked together.

"How's school bin then?" Hagrid asked him. Harry wasn't entirely sure how to answer. Learning magic hadn't lost any of its luster to Harry, but due to some bad teachers and bad classmates he hadn't been enjoying many of his classes. Hagrid sympathized with, going so far as to express his own dislike of Snape and Quirrel, though he did mention that Dumbledore trusted them, so they surely couldn't be that bad.

Harry still didn't know how he felt about Dumbledore. He hadn't spoken to him in person yet, and he wasn't seen by any of the students any time other than at meals. Aunt Petunia had told him that it was Dumbledore's fault that his parents had died, and that he was completely unsuitable to be Harry's magical guardian, but considering that this was the same woman who had told him that magic wasn't real and his parents had died in a car crash, he wasn't ready to blindly accept her ideas.

Hagrid ended up inviting him over to visit after Christmas, and Harry was happy to agree. He still pictured his uncle's tail any time he was feeling down, and hadn't forgotten his aunt's instructions to retrieve his bank key. He waved goodbye as he headed towards the Slytherin table.

Malfoy and his friends predictably made fun of him for associating with a half-breed. He scowled down at his plate and tried his best to ignore him, reminding himself constantly that in a day they'd be gone and he'd practically have the run of the castle!

Christmas break had finally come, and Harry had watched happily from a chair in the corner as the Slytherin students filed out of the common room. Malfoy had tried to upset Harry, using the "nobody loves you" bait, but Harry couldn't be bothered to respond.

At long last, he was free from the influence of the Dursleys, for a blissful few weeks. The only time he'd ever really been away from them before was when they left him with his babysitter when they didn't want to bring him on their trips. He was planning on making the most of it – he could finally wander the halls without fear that Dudley or groups of Slytherins would intercept him, and all the small cuts and bruises on his body would have a chance to heal without the constant bombardment of hexes.

In his potions textbook, which he read dutifully before each class in a futile attempt to avoid blowing up the cauldron with Neville, there were instructions for a basic bruise salve. He'd taken careful inventory of his meager potions kit and decided that he had enough to spare to give it a shot – luckily Neville seemed to have no shortage of replacement ingredients since his Gran knew all about his lack of potions abilities.

One afternoon, he'd set up his cauldron in an unused classroom and set to work. Without Snape breathing down his shoulder and Neville as his partner, Harry wasn't nearly as bad as potions as he had suspected! It was a lot like cooking, which he was rather good at, even if he didn't like cooking for the Dursleys. Everything had been going well, until he heard loud voices outside of the door. Peeves had told his cousin where he was, and Dudley had come to the brilliant conclusion that he must be brewing something dangerous to try to 'ruin everything' for Dudley, once again.

Having a half-finished bruise salve spilled all over him had not been a pleasant experience, and as Madam Pomfrey had tutted over him, she had forbidden him from ever experimenting without potions outside of class ever again. He agreed with her to her face, but secretly took the message to only brew somewhere Peeves and his cousin wouldn't be able to find!

It was with that thought in mind that Harry went exploring through the castle the day after break had started. He was hoping to find an unused room, maybe with a creepy statue or weird smell that would deter other students from coming near it. He found a couple rooms that were out of the way of daily Hogwarts life, but none that he felt were truly safe from Dudley and the Slytherins.

He even stumbled on a secret passage that took him from the dungeons to the charms classroom much more quickly than the normal route. He realized that the castle must be full of secret passages and such, and decided to try and find as many of them as possible. It would be very advantageous to have a way to escape the various confrontations he found himself a part of!

On the days leading up to Christmas, he spent his time exploring the castle and doing research in the library. He was still trying to find better ways to protect himself. He'd read about the shield charm ages ago, but had unfortunately not been able to get it to work. A lot of the hexes he had experienced had counters, which he had been fairly successful in learning, but his used wand was temperamental, and occasionally would refuse to cast any spells, instead shooting out sparks or blowing things up. He found it incredibly frustrating and reminded himself over and over again to get the key from Hagrid.

On Christmas day he woke early as usual, and blearily stumbled into the bathroom to get ready for the day. As he returned to his bed, he was shocked to notice that there were presents at the foot of the bed. He stood, gaping at them, and feeling very relieved that none of the boys in his dorm were there to see his surprise. He gently placed the gifts on his bed and looked at the cards to see who would be sending gifts to _him_.

There were gifts from Neville and Hermione, and one that had no tag on it at all. There was also a crumpled letter from his family. He opened Neville's first, and smiled when he saw the bottles of ink. He was almost out, due to Neville spilling his only jar on the train, and had been very apprehensive to ask his aunt and uncle for more. He got some chocolates from Hermione, and a muggle psychology book. He was a bit confused about the book at first, since he had never expressed an interest in the subject, but rolled his eyes when he opened it and discovered that there was an entire section on the importance of children doing schoolwork themselves in order to do well on tests. It was meant for overzealous parents who had the tendency to 'help' their children by doing their homework for them, but Harry knew she was not-so-subtly trying to convince him to stop doing Dudley's work for him. He set the book aside, knowing it was very unlikely he'd ever read it. He wished that he had any money to send them gifts in return, or even an owl so he could write them thank-you notes, but realized he would have to wait to thank them in person.

The card from his family had a note warning him to be on his best behaviour and to retrieve his vault key. There was a 50 pence piece taped to the bottom. Harry knew better by now than to expect any real gift from them, so the letter wasn't a disappointment. He still wished that they would at least stop hating them, but knew that he had been such a burden on them all his life that this was incredibly unlikely.

The last gift was the most surprising. It was an old cloak with an unsigned note in it, telling him that it had belonged to his father and now belonged to him. He greedily ran his hands over the smooth fabric, and put it on, imagining how his father had done the same thing. He had been told many times that he looked just like his father, and went to a mirror so he could pretend that his dad was looking out at him, and yelped in surprise when he couldn't see his body. He dropped the cloak and it fluttered to the floor, causing his body to come back into view. He cautiously picked it up, and put it back on, watching his reflection with wide eyes as he shimmered out of sight. The cloak would come in very handy in his exploration of the castle, so he could avoid Filch and his horrible cat, plus he could use it to keep out of Dudley's way!

The Christmas feast had mounds of delicious food, and Christmas crackers that had far more interesting prizes than anything he had ever seen in the muggle counterpart. A live mouse crawled out of the one he opened, and he saw an entire chess set come out of one of the other ones opened at his table.

He heard shouting from the Gryffindor table and looked over to see the youngest Weasley yelling at what appeared to be another chess set. He was sitting across from the twins, who also looked like they were talking to the board. Harry had been about to head back to his dorm anyways, so decided to take a walk by the Gryffindor table on his way out to see whether they were all mad.

"I TOLD you to go to F6!" Ron was yelling at one of the bishops as Harry passed by. Harry finally understood why they were talking to the pieces when the bishop actually argued back! He nearly tripped on his own feet, and caught the attention of the twins.

"Potter!" one of them exclaimed, "what brings you to our lovely table?"

"Uh, I was just leaving the feast," he muttered as he made to keep walking.

"Well keep going!" Ron glared at him, "we don't need any slimy Slytherins trying to sabotage our dinner!"

"Now ickly Ronnikins-," one of the twins chastised.

"-It's Christmas day!" the second finished.

"The time of year for happiness-"

"-good spirit, not to mention-"

"good fun!" they both finished with a wicked smile. Harry and Ron both gulped. Even Harry had learned of the twins' notorious pranking and was keen to leave before any of their "good fun" found him.

"Are you sure you don't want to take a seat?" one of them asked them. It must be George, Harry realized, as he finally noticed that their jumpers had large initials on them.

"Uh, I think I'll just head to my dorm, thanks." He started to inch away from the table.

"Nonsense! I'm sure you'd love to try wizard's chess," Fred said enticingly. Harry tried to fight his curiosity, but his need to know how wizard's chess was different from the chess he knew of outweighed his desire to flee.

"What _is_ wizard's chess?" he asked hesitantly.

"You've never played wizard's chess?!" Ron said incredulously. He quickly forgot who he was talking to and launched into an explanation of how it was the greatest game ever (aside from Quiddich, of course) and was enthusiastically showing Harry how the pieces would give you advice, especially if it was an old set and they had been trained by a good player, when George casually offered him a red candy. He was so intrigued by Ron's explanation that he absent-mindedly popped it into his mouth.

Big mistake. It felt like his mouth was on fire, the thing was so spicy, and with watering eyes he tried to grab the closest beverage. Unfortunately, as soon as he opened his mouth to take a drink, flames shot out of his mouth, surprising him so badly that he dropped the pitcher of juice. The twins and Ron were all laughing at him, but tried to stop when they saw an older boy with the same orange hair and home knit jumper turn around and glare at them.

"FRED! GEORGE!" he yelled as he glared at them and quickly got up to go to Harry. "WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT PRANKING YOUNGER STUDENTS!"

"Sorry Percy," they chorused in a singsong voice. George winked at Harry as Percy began to steer him away. Percy warned Harry that he should never take food from his younger brothers and also told him to avoid the Gryffindor table if at all possible. He informed Harry that since both Slytherin prefects were away for the break, he'd have to come talk to him if there were any more problems. The older Gryffindor seemed to puff up when talking about how important his job as a prefect was, and Harry thought that he was a little bit full of himself, even though he was grateful for the help.

He managed to get free of Percy and his ramblings when he yawned and said he really had to be going to bed, and quickly rushed straight to his dorm. In reality, he just didn't want to listen to the importance of Percy's position any longer and was excited to get back to his empty dorm.

That night, Harry paced around his room, much too excited about the prospect of exploring the castle with his new cloak to be tired at all. As soon as curfew had passed, he wrapped the cloak around himself and snuck out of the dungeons. He paused in shock at how still everything was as he reached the staircases: hardly any were moving, as opposed to the general chaos during the day.

He stepped quietly onto a staircase and started climbing. About half way up, the whole thing starting moving, startling him so badly that he scrambled to hold the railing as he almost lost his footing. He quickly started moving again as soon as the motion stopped, worried that someone may have heard him.

"Did you hear something, my sweet?" he heard Filch's voice mutter in the sugary tone he reserved for his beloved cat. Harry nearly groaned – of _course_ the awful caretaker would continue to patrol the castle at night! He continued silently up the steps, hoping being invisible would stop Filch from finding him. He almost lost his footing again as his left foot slid into the stone; he'd forgotten to watch out for the trick steps that seemed to crop up everywhere.

"There it is!" he heard Filch cry gleefully as he heard the scrabbling noises Harry was making. Harry looked down the stairs as he yanked his foot out just in time to see Mrs. Norris round the corner, who was surely closely followed by the caretaker. Harry turned and ran, no longer trying to be quiet. His only hope was to outrun Filch and hopefully find himself at the entrance to one of the secret passages.

"Student out of bed!" he heard Filch shout, as his heavy footsteps followed Harry.

Harry's bad luck continued as he found himself in a dusty old corridor he'd never seen before. He pounded down the hallway, turned down a different branch and then stopped in dismay as he reached a dead end. He huddled close to the doorway he was standing in, making sure he was completely covered by the cloak. He could see the cat reach the place the hallway branched and quietly groaned when he saw her sniff the air and take the correct direction. He hadn't realized he'd be so vulnerable, even with the cloak making him invisible!

She stalked down the hallway towards him, her yellow eyes glowing in the darkness. Harry tried the door and found it was locked.

"Alohomora!" he whispered as he pointed his wand at the lock, and sighed in relief as it clicked open. He quickly went into the room and shut the door behind him, just as an out of breath Filch reached the junction in the hallway. He had never been so thankful for Dudley bullying him in his life! It was only because he'd been locked into a couple cupboards that he'd managed to find a spell that unlocked doors, and without being able to get out of the hallway he would have been in big trouble!

He could hear Filch talking to his cat, and let out his breath as he heard the man's footsteps fade away in the opposite direction. He must not have been expecting someone invisible, and had likely gone the other way when he didn't see anyone down Harry's path.

As his heart rate slowed enough to dull the pounding of blood in his ears, Harry suddenly froze. There was someone else in the room – someone else with incredibly loud breathing. He whirled around to find himself staring into the huge eyes of an enormous three-headed dog. He gasped, then immediately realized his mistake as the heads all turned to stare at the door. They sniffed loudly, and a low, rumbling growl started to shake the floor. Harry knew that the dog couldn't see him, but that didn't matter! It could see him and hear him, just like Filch's cat, and was equally unfriendly.

Given the choice between a monstrous dog with three sets of sharp teeth and a spiteful cat, he knew which option he'd take – not getting caught out of bed was definitely not worth getting eaten! He nearly fell out of the room and ran as fast as he could all the way back to the dungeons. It was only by sheer luck that Filch was far enough out of earshot and he didn't run into anyone else that he made it back to the common room without being caught.

He sat shakily on the end of his bed as he caught his breath. He must have been in the forbidden corridor of the third floor, and more surprising than that, Dudley really hadn't been lying when he said he had heard the thunderous growling! Harry couldn't wait until Hermione came back from the break – he owed her an apology for not believing her in the first place!

A/N: I didn't have time to edit this chapter before I posted it, like I usually do, since I just finished it last night! Sorry if there are any mistakes.


	13. The Mirror of Erised

CHAPTER 13

The day after Harry's terrifying nightly encounter, he spent the entire afternoon holed up in the library. He had no intention of ever going anywhere near the monster behind the locked door ever again, but had realized that simply being invisible was not enough to protect him from being found. He really needed to do something about the sound of his feet, and possibly hide his scent from the animals in the building or he was in danger of being caught again.

His cloak covered both his body and the book he was reading as he sat in a far corner of the library, since the librarian had taken a firm dislike to him and tended to hover over him any time she saw him there. He had to admit that she did have a valid reason for this though: Dudley and no respect for books and loved to rip up anything Harry was holding whenever he saw him. This had unfortunately included one or two library books, and Madam Pince had forbidden him from signing out any books after he'd sheepishly brought a few back with pages torn out.

He sighed as he flipped through the pages of the third promising book he had removed from the shelves. He didn't mind researching spells that would come in handy, but there were plenty of other things he would rather be doing! It was also frustrating having to make sure he wasn't humming, as he often did while he studied. He flipped the page and grinned as he found the perfect set of spells in a chapter titled 'The Art of Going Unnoticed". He knew that he would need the illustrations in the book to have any chance of doing the spell properly, but if he tried it here, the librarian would likely catch him.

Smuggling the book out of the library was remarkable easy without a cranky librarian keeping her eagle eye on you, and Harry soon found himself in an old classroom. He felt a little bit guilty as he set the open book on a table and got his wand out, but told himself that it would be fine as long as he put the book right back when he was done with it. Dudley wasn't here to ruin it, and it should be back before anybody noticed it was missing!

The spell to make footsteps silent had to be applied to the bottom of your shoes, but didn't seem like it would be too tricky. The book was a helpful one, complete with moving illustrations that showed the proper wand movement. Harry tried to mimic the way Professor Flitwick taught charms, and practiced the wand movement without the incantation first, until he was satisfied that it looked right. He added the words, but pointed away from himself the first time.

It was a good thing he hadn't pointed at his own feet when several yellow sparks flew out the end of his wand and seemed to melt the floor slightly. He sighed and tried again.

It was much later when Harry decided to give up for the night. It hadn't been a very productive session, and he had yet to cast either of the charms he wanted to learn correctly. He checked the time, and was surprised to see that it was past curfew. Time always seemed to fly by whenever he was practicing magic.

He threw the cloak over himself and rushed to the library to return the book. He had just slipped it onto the shelf and was turning to leave when he saw Snape enter the library. He tiptoed as quietly as he could towards the library exit, painfully aware that his feet weren't silenced.

Ever since the encounter with the troll, Harry had noticed that Snape was extremely observant. Virtually nothing slipped by the man, including suspicious noises in the library at night, apparently. He was almost at the door when he bumped into a chair in the darkness.

"Who's there?" he heard Snape's voice ooze out of the darkness towards him. Harry pressed himself against a bookshelf and covered his mouth to try and mask the sound of his breathing. He inched his way along the side of the room, nearly panicking as he heard the Professor's footsteps grow closer. He couldn't believe he was stupid enough to be in this situation for the second time in two nights! He vowed that he'd stay in his dorm after curfew until he learned enough spells to keep himself from being caught.

Harry made it to the door and turned to go back to his dorm, when he suddenly trod on something squishy. A loud yowl alerted him that he had just stepped on Mrs. Norris' tail. Snape appeared in the doorway, his dark eyes staring right through him, and Harry could hear Filch's panicked cries as he rushed to his cat's aid.

Walking as fast as he dared without making too much sound, he backed down the hallway.

"How dare anyone hurt you, my sweet?" Filch muttered as he pet his cat, his bloodshot eyes darting around as he searched for any sign of movement down the corridor.

Harry was just turning the corner into another hallway when he heard Snape tell Filch that his cat would be fine, in less than comforting words.

"Homenum Revelio," he cast, cutting off Filch's angry response with a spell Harry had never heard of before. Harry didn't notice anything happen, but he was in a different hallway so he guessed it was some sort of visual spell or something.

"Did you see anyone?" Filch asked the professor.

"No," Snape drawled, "but they can't have gone far."

The two men came down the hallway, Filch's shuffling footsteps echoing down the empty corridors. Harry kept walking, staying just ahead of them, but he was beginning to panic; He couldn't keep this up for much longer or he would surely stumble and they would catch him!

He passed a suit of armour that looked completely unfamiliar before he noticed a door that was standing slightly ajar. He could hear the footsteps shuffling closer and closer, so he desperately sucked in and squeezed through the door, being careful not to move it and give himself away. For once, he was thankful that he was so small as he heard the footsteps pass by the room he'd ducked into.

He sighed in relief and turned around to see what was in the room. It looked like it was one of the many unused classrooms riddling the hallways of the school, but there was a large mirror propped up against a wall that looked incredibly out of place.

He walked over to it, taking off his cloak so he wouldn't appear to have no reflection like the vampire's he had read about in some of Dudley's cast-off books. The top had the inscription "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi," which Harry thought must be in a strange language since it didn't look like anything he had seen before.

He stood directly before the mirror and had to stifle his gasp as he looked into it: there was a whole crowd of people behind him! He whirled around, but no, he was alone in the room. The mirror must be showing them to him, but why?

He took a closer look and realized that many of the figures had green eyes, like his, or messy black hair and glasses. His breath fogged on the glass as he took a closer look at what must be his family. He had never even seen a picture of them before, but here they were, standing beside him, so close it seemed like he should be able to touch them.

His hands reached out, almost of their own accord, but found nothing but cool glass. He felt tears welling up inside of him, half due to the joy of finally knowing his family, but half due to the frustration of being so close to them, but not being able to talk to them or touch them.

He stayed in front of the mirror for what must have been a long time, hungrily taking in the images of his family until he heard a noise elsewhere in the castle. He had to get back to his dorm, before anyone noticed he was missing, so he reluctantly slipped his cloak back on and left with the silent promise that he would come back again soon.

The next morning, Harry could hardly force himself to eat. Nothing seemed to matter, except getting back to the mirror and spending more time with his parents.

It was a good thing that Hagrid stopped by the Slytherin table as he left the Great Hall, or Harry would have forgotten completely that he had been invited down to the gamekeeper's house for tea later that afternoon.

Hagrid's hut looked very small from the castle, but as Harry walked closer, he saw that it was actually much bigger than a normal hut. That made sense, since Hagrid was so much bigger than a normal person! Harry wasn't sure what to expect from the man – he seemed really nice from the little Harry had interacted with him, and giving his uncle a tail had been absolutely brilliant, but he was still a stranger.

"Hello Harry!" Hagrid greeted him brightly as he opened the door. He was holding a large dog back and noticed Harry looking at it warily.

"Don' mind Fang now," he reassured, "My dogs look a little scary, but they're really jus' big softies!"

"Dogs?" Harry asked, as he tried to peek past Hagrid to see whether there were more behind him.

Hagrid ignored him and led him into his house. Harry's feet dangled off the chair as he sipped the tea Hagrid had offered him. He had politely taken a bite of one of Hagrid's lumpy homemade rock cakes and had almost broken his teeth off on them. He discretely stuck it under the table to where Fang's head was resting on his knee. Even Fang knew better than to try and eat Hagrid's cooking, so all he ended up with was a soggy inedible lump that he stuck in his robes to dispose of later.

Harry was enjoying Hagrid's story of the first time he had seen a dragon, when he suddenly remembered that he was supposed to get his key back. Hagrid was really nice, but seemed to have an odd perspective on what would make good pets – Harry was sure he would never want to be anywhere near a dragon, let alone keep one himself!

"I was wondering," he spoke tentatively as Hagrid lapsed into a happy silence.

"Wha's that?" Hagrid replied, shaking himself out of his daydream.

Harry repeated himself, "I was wondering whether you still had my Gringott's key. You see, my aunt and uncle were hoping they wouldn't have to pay for all of my Hogwarts things themselves."

Hagrid looked horrified. He quickly apologized for forgetting to give Harry the key in all the excitement.

"It mus' still be in my coat!" he exclaimed, going over to the hook a coat with more pockets than Harry had ever seen in one place was hanging.

"Er, it's okay," Harry anxiously tried to get him to calm his frantic search. "There's no hurry; I don't even need it until next year anyways!"

"If yer sure," Hagrid replied slowly as he came back to the table. "I'll jus' make sure I have it here before yeh come back – yeh'll come back to visit, righ'?"

"Of course," Harry reassured him. He had enjoyed spending time with the groundskeeper, and wasn't feeling quite as lonely anymore.

Harry checked the time, and noticed that it was almost suppertime. He was just about to leave when Hagrid shoved a package into his hands. He looked up in confusion.

"It's a present for yeh," Hagrid said gruffly. "I wanted to get teh know yeh a little before I gave it ter you, but here it is."

"Oh!" Harry exclaimed. "Thank you! Only, I don't have anything to give you."

"Tha's okay! I made this meself anyhow. I hope yeh like it – Fang's not too big on music, bu' it would put Fluffy right ter sleep!" Hagrid chuckled.

"Fluffy? Is that your other dog?" Harry asked.

"I shouldn'a said tha'," Hagrid mumbled, clapping a hand over his mouth.

Harry didn't understand what the big deal was. Why would you have to keep a dog secret? Unless...

"Hagrid, does Fluffy live in the castle?" He had the horrible feeling that the giant dog he had run into would be exactly the type of animal that Hagrid would want as a pet, but needed to make sure.

"How do yeh know where Fluffy lives?" Hagrid asked suspiciously, answering Harry's question accidentally.

"Uh, just a rumour that Dudley started," he said, trying to convince himself that if he hadn't run into the dog himself it really would just be a rumour, so he wasn't _really_ lying.

"Oh." Hagrid looked relieved. "Make sure yeh stay out o' trouble then," the man cautioned him as he left.

"I will!" Harry responded with a cheery wave as he began walking back to the castle.

Back in his room, he opened the clumsily wrapped present Hagrid had given him. It was a wooden flute that sounded a bit like an owl when he blew into it. He carefully packed it into his trunk before heading down to the Great Hall, hurrying a little since dinner had already started.

However, as he left his dorm, he found himself walking not towards food, but up towards the library to find the mirror again. He walked faster and faster as he searched for the suit of armour that marked the right door. It took a long time to find the right hallway, and Harry's stomach was starting to grumble about the lack of food, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered, not as long as he got to spend more time with his family.

He sank down in front of the mirror, grinning as his parents nodded hello to him. Time flew by again, but luckily his stomach growled loudly enough to get him to tear his eyes away from the mirror to check the time. It was almost curfew, so as much as he longed to stay, he had promised himself not to be out after dark again, so he raced through the hallways and was in his dorm just in time.

The night seemed to drag by, since Harry couldn't fall asleep. Every time he was about to, the excitement that he would soon be able to go back to the mirror and back to his family woke him right back up. He grabbed his cloak, and didn't even bother to convince himself that he would later be going down for breakfast. He'd gone without food for longer than two meals before, so it would be fine.

He found the room much more quickly this time, and tore off the cloak so he could see his reflection. He took a seat in front of the mirror as he had done the day before, and lost himself in the reflection.

Some time later, he heard someone clear their throat. He leapt up, and spun around to find himself face-to-face with the headmaster.

"I, uh, didn't see you there, headmaster," he said nervously, not sure whether he was allowed to be in the room or not; it wasn't the forbidden corridor, but it _was_ tucked pretty out of the way.

Dumbledore smiled kindly. "Such is the danger of the Mirror of Erised. You, like many others before you, have discovered the dangerous power it holds."

"Mirror of Erised," Harry echoed softly. "I didn't know it had a name."

"Oh yes," Dumbledore replied gravely. "This is a very famous artifact – many wizards much more experienced than you have wasted away before it, helpless to the image of their deepest desire."

"And I wish I could have known my family, more than anything," Harry muttered sadly.

"An admirable desire," the headmaster smiled at him. "The mirror will be moved to a new location tonight, and I must ask that you do not seek it out again."

Harry's shoulders fell. He realized that he had been spending too much time in front of the mirror, but to never see his family again would be difficult.

"I understand, sir," he replied in a small voice.

"Now I think it would be best for you to run along to breakfast," the headmaster told him. "Remember, our deepest desires can't always be realized, but there are more ways to create deep bonds than by simply sharing blood."

Harry picked his cloak up off the floor where he had let it fall and carefully pushed it into his backpack as he left the room. He could see Professor Dumbledore's point – after all, he cared far more about Neville, who he had only known for a few months, than his awful relatives who had alienated him his whole life.

As he sat at the breakfast table poking at a sausage, he realized that he was in desperate need of a distraction so he wouldn't keep brooding about what he had seen in the mirror. He decided against working on his spellwork, which hadn't been going very well before he found the mirror anyways, but couldn't think of anything else to do.

He suddenly remembered what Hagrid had told him during their tea: His dogs were just "big softies" and music would put Fluffy right to sleep! With nothing else to keep him from utter boredom, what else was there to do? He was going to befriend a giant, three-headed dog.

* * *

At Number 4 Privet Drive, the Dursleys were enjoying their best Christmas since Harry had been left on their doorstep all those years ago. The sour look on Petunia's face had melted off, and she was smiling more than Dudley could ever remember. Vernon was also in high spirits, and without Harry to keep in line, he was more relaxed than he had ever been during a high-profile holiday.

Petunia hosted some events with the other wives of the neighbourhood, and Vernon had an important man over for a lovely dinner one night. Even Dudley got to invite his friends over to try out his new games – something he had avoided in the past because the freak always got in the way.

It was amazing, really, how normal their lives could be when they weren't worried about their horrible nephew bringing his funny business into their house.

Dudley threw a tantrum when he had to get ready to go back to the school. He wanted to stay where he belonged, in the real world, with this happy family he never even knew he had. He wished fervently that Harry would just vanish and leave them alone for once as he pressed his face against the glass of the train window, watching as his teary parents blurred into smudges in the distance.

He had always said that the freak ruined everything, but it was only after the best Christmas ever that he truly came to believe it. He discretely wiped the tears off his face before anyone could see and leaned against the back of the seat with resentment bubbling up inside of him.

A/N: When I first had the thought of Harry befriending Fluffy, I was going to put it in a whole different fic (one that was a little lighter and sillier), but then I realized that I'd then have to wait _forever_ to actually get to write it since I don't like working on more than one story at once... so it wormed its way into Bad Press - my bad!


	14. Befriending Fluffy

CHAPTER 14

Harry was sitting at the Slytherin table waiting for the rest of the students to arrive on the first day back. Despite his turbulent experience with the Mirror of Erised, he decided that his Christmas had been by far the best ever. He was looking forward to seeing Neville and Hermione again and thanking them for the gifts. He had decided against telling them about the mirror though. It seemed too personal to share, even with them.

He also would not be telling them about Fluffy! He had started trying to befriend the giant dog, but hadn't made much progress yet. Dumbledore's twinkling eyes seemed to linger on him whenever they were in the same room, and Harry had the distinct impression that he was being watched to make sure he stayed out of trouble. Still, he had found time to slip away to the third floor corridor a few times.

The first time had gone less than ideally. Harry remembered Hagrid's comment that music put Fluffy to sleep, so he brought the flute with him. It had worked like a charm! The giant dog's three heads all shut their eyes and fell to the floor with a soft thud and one even started snoring. When he wasn't trying to attack Harry, Fluffy was actually kind of cute! Unfortunately, Harry hadn't realized that if the music stopped, Fluffy would wake up. He had turned around to grab something out of his backpack and been startled to find himself staring into six sets of glaring eyes when he turned back around.

Since then, he had decided that it was much easier to hum instead of playing the flute, because he often hummed anyways and it was easier to keep up than blowing into the wooden instrument. He hadn't quite worked up the courage to get close to the dog yet, even though he did seem pretty harmless when he was asleep, but he was planning on that next step soon enough!

"...and I got the newest racing broom, of course!" Harry heard Malfoy brag to Parkinson as they walked over to the table. Harry rolled his eyes – Malfoy seemed to be almost as spoiled as Dudley was!

"Have a nice Christmas, Potter?" he taunted Harry as he sat at the table near him. "Oh wait, I almost forgot, even your mudblood cousin didn't want you! Imagine that – being rejected by filthy muggles! You're practically worse than a squib!"

Harry didn't know what a squib was, but he was quite sure that it wasn't a nice thing. He hated not knowing what Malfoy was talking about; how could he think of anything to say when he didn't even understand the insult! He decided to look up what it meant later so he wouldn't be at the same disadvantage the next time Malfoy tried to insult him.

He was scowling at his plate, as per usual after talking to Malfoy when something odd happened: one of the older students actually stood up for him!

"Lay off him, Malfoy," commanded a boy that Harry thought was maybe in fourth year. Malfoy was opening his mouth to retort when Zabini elbowed him. He muttered something that Harry couldn't quite hear instead and went back to talking to Pansy.

Harry's attention drifted away from the blond and his eyes slid over to the Gryffindor table. He did a double take as he locked eyes with his cousin – he had never seen the expression of pure hatred that was being leveled at him before! Sure, Dudley had made it abundantly clear that he wasn't welcome in their family and enjoyed taunting him and beating him up, but now he looked like he would kill Harry if he could!

After the meal was over, Harry was just leaving the Great Hall someone pushed him from behind so hard that he lost his balance and fell to the floor. He quickly turned to see Dudley looming over him, the same horrible expression on his face.

Dudley had told Ron about the situation over dinner. Ron was still a bit skeptical that Potter was really that bad, but he could understand the feeling of being overlooked in his house and supposed Dudley was feeling similarly. After all, aside from his initial thought that it would be wicked to be the cousin of the Boy-Who-Lived, he had realized that his older brothers weren't nearly as famous as Harry and he was already not as good as them!

Now Ron was torn as he saw Dudley looming over Potter: he knew his friend was angry, but wasn't sure they should be doing this. His internal struggle continued as he saw Dudley start kicking and hitting his cousin, while tears streamed down his face. He was blubbering nearly incomprehensibly about how Potter had ruined his life, but as he heard a loud crack Ron knew that this had gone way too far, and rushed over to restrain his friend.

When he felt hands on him, Dudley whirled around, his red eyes rolling madly around his head. He only barely registered that it was Ron pulling him back, telling him that they had to go, and only shuffled along mutely as he was led back towards the Gryffindor tower.

Harry lay moaning on the floor, hardly registering that the assault was over. His glasses were lying shattered on the floor beside his face, and he couldn't feel the fingers in his left hand. It was far worse a beating than he'd ever received before, and he honestly had no idea what had provoked it! He'd been too busy trying to shield his face to try and make sense of everything Dudley was babbling. He groaned as he tried to get up off the ground.

"Harry?" said a girl's voice from behind him. He turned to find Hermione's horrified face staring at him.

"Oh Harry! What happened?" she asked as she tentatively raised a hand as if to touch him before changing her mind and awkwardly bringing it back down to her side.

"Uh, nothing," he lied obviously. She almost made a disapproving face, but couldn't quite get it past the extremely concerned look she was already shooting him.

"You have to go to the hospital wing!" she told him.

"No!" Harry yelped. He knew he was hurt pretty badly, but if he went to the hospital wing now there would be all sorts of questions asked, and he knew from experience that people asking him questions never turned out well.

"But you're hurt!" Hermione persisted. "You have to go!" She couldn't understand his reluctance. Didn't he want to feel better?

Harry had known Hermione for long enough that he knew that stubborn look in her eyes. She wasn't going to back down on this, especially because she actually seemed to care for him. He was going to have to lie to her to get her off his back, which he really didn't want to do, but if the only other option was to tell on Dudley he was going to have to.

"Fine," he told her, in a small voice. "I'll go." She smiled at him casually fixed his broken glasses before she started to walk along with him.

"It's okay," he told her, trying to ignore the nagging guilt in his head, "I can go myself."

Hermione looked at him suspiciously.

"No, really, it's okay," he reassured her. "I'm sure you have lots of homework to go over before class starts tomorrow anyways!"

It was the right thing to say to get her off his back. She reluctantly agreed that she did indeed have a few essays that could do with some revisions and headed back down the hall away from him, after warning him that she'd be checking in on him the next day to make sure he really had gone.

Harry started walking towards the infirmary, but soon turned back towards the dungeons once he was sure that Hermione had really left him alone. In the common room he tried to sneak past the rest of the Slytherins without showing how hurt he was to any of the rest of them, but got caught by one of the older boys from the Quiddich team just before entering the boys dorms.

"Hello Potter," he nodded politely. He probably would have moved along to join his friends, when he looked at Harry properly and noticed the cuts and bruises on his face. An odd look crossed the boy's face. Harry couldn't tell what he was thinking, but he was wary of the calculating look he saw in the boy's eyes.

"Who did this? Gryffindors? Fellow Slytherins? Need me to teach someone a lesson?"

"Uh, no thanks," Harry said as he tried to inch around him to get to his dorm.

"If you're sure. If you change your mind though, come find me. I'm not sure we were ever introduced properly," he continued. "My name is Miles Bletchley." He held out his hand.

"Uh, nice to meet you," Harry shook his hand cautiously. "I'll just be on my way now..."

"One minute," Bletchley pulled out his wand. "I can heal those cuts on your face for you. No Slytherin should ever go around looking like they were just beat up."

Harry walked into his bathroom and stared into the mirror completely baffled. First the boy in the Great Hall and then Zabini had both kept Malfoy in check and now Bletchley was helping him! He was thankful, of course, but also confused. Nobody in Slytherin had ever done anything nice for him before!

He cleaned himself up the best he could. His hand was beginning to swell and was very sore. Maybe he should have gone to the infirmary after all. Luckily it wasn't his wand arm, so he could probably keep it hidden from Hermione at least! Plus, without Dudley hunting him, he had managed to brew some extra bruise salve in the last few days of class, which would come in extremely handy now.

When Harry woke up the next morning his hand had a dark purple bruise, despite the salve he'd put on it the night before, and he couldn't move his fingers. Sighing, he decided to go to the infirmary after all. It was early enough that it was unlikely anyone would see him, and his face looked fine thanks to Bletchley's help last night.

Madam Pomfrey looked skeptical when he told her how he'd accidentally dropped his cauldron on his hand the night before, but hadn't wanted to leave his dorm so late at night, but she fixed him up and sent him on his way anyways.

For the rest of the week, he carefully avoided Dudley, who needed to be held back by Ron any time he saw his cousin. Ron had even taken to picking up the homework Harry did for Dudley instead of his cousin. He was always polite enough when he came to Harry in the library, but never spoke more than was absolutely necessary.

Hermione had also noticed a change in the pudgy Gryffindor, and spoke with Neville and Harry about it.

"He's awful, I know," she confided in Harry, "but I'm worried about him. He always seems so down!" Harry didn't have anything to say. He didn't know what had caused Dudley's change in mood any more than Hermione did!

Dudley started lashing out at Harry's friends. It was a few days later when Neville came to the library sporting a black eye and looking more angry than Harry had ever seen him.

"That pig actually _hit_ Hermione!" he hissed at Harry. His normally pleasant expression was twisted into a scowl that didn't suit the shy boy's personality.

"What?!" Harry exclaimed. He knew Dudley and his friends back home picked on younger boys, but he had thought that even Dudley drew the line at hitting a girl.

"She was trying to help him with a spell his was having trouble with, and the ungrateful git exploded and punched her!"

Neville had then stepped in, and almost wound up the courage to fight back when Dudley had punched him in the eye and some older students had broken up the brawl.

"Next time..." he told Harry in an embarrassed tone.

"I don't think it would be any better if you had hit him anyways," Harry had reassured him. "But maybe you and Hermione shouldn't be seen with me for a while..."

Neville tried to convince Harry that it wasn't his fault, but he wasn't going to be swayed. He knew that Dudley was only targeting them because they were his friends, and he didn't want them to get more hurt. He promised Neville that they would still be friends, just not hang out for a while, but the Gryffindor still looked really hurt as Harry walked out of the library.

Hermione had tried to persuade him otherwise when Neville had told her what Harry had decided, but between having almost no classes with them, and using the invisibility cloak almost all the time when they weren't in class, his friends didn't have much say in the matter. At least they had each other, Harry thought guiltily.

Meanwhile, Harry redoubled his efforts of befriending Fluffy. He was now comfortable being in the same room as the dog while he was asleep, and Fluffy was even beginning to get used to him so much that he stopped growling in his sleep. It wasn't until a while later at breakfast when Harry had his next big idea – sausages. Ripper had been terrifying until Harry smelled like sausage, and then he had almost been nice! Harry quickly looked around to make sure nobody was looking as he wrapped a few links and tucked them into his backpack.

It was Saturday, and he was itching to get away from the rest of his housemates, but they were still being so nice to him that it was oddly difficult to go off alone.

"Want to join our game of snap?" Zabini called out as he walked out of the common room.

"No thanks, I think I'll head to the library to study."

"You sure?" Nott added. "We've got a snacks!"

Harry looked over and saw an open box of Every Flavour Beans and shuddered.

"No, it's fine, really."

"Do you need any studying help?" Bletchley added as he joined the conversation.

"No, I just need to do some research..."

He finally got away and threw his cloak on as soon as he rounded the corner. He made his way to the third floor and started humming a lullaby as he gently opened the door. Fluffy's great eyes drooped closed, but his noses started to twitch as Harry carefully unwrapped the sausages. He paused as he stood before the sleeping dog. Obviously, Fluffy would have to be awake to eat the sausages, but Harry wanted to make sure that he wouldn't get an arm bitten off in the process. He decided that putting the sausages on the floor in front of each head before he stopped humming, then retreating to the far corner of the room would probably be his safest option.

His heart pounding wildly, Harry finished the lullaby. Even in their sleep, the heads were drooling more than usual as their noses picked up the scent of sausage. Slowly, six yellow eyes opened and focused on Harry. The dog stood up and started to growl softly, but didn't move towards him at all. He held his breath and tried to look as unimportant as possible.

One of the heads licked its lips, and Harry opened his mouth to start singing again, but instead of lunging at him, it went for the sausages down on the floor. The other heads seemed to realize quickly that there were more of the treats and were quick to snap them up before the other heads could steal them away.

The room was silent after the heads were finished. The heads stared at Harry, and he stared back, staying still as a statue. Deciding it was better not to push his luck, he started humming again. The dog slowly sank back down to the floor and began to snore.

Harry tentatively moved closer, emboldened by his success. He slowly reached his hand out to the head on the left. His palm was much smaller than the dog's nose, and he once again realized just how massive Fluffy was. Before he could lose his nerve, he set his hand on the dog and gave it a pat. Nothing happened. Fluffy stayed sound asleep, apparently unaware that Harry was so close.

The nose twitched as Harry was admiring how surprisingly soft the fur on the giant dog's face was. He had expected it to by much coarser, like Ripper's coat, but he had never touched the face of his aunt's dog, so maybe that was just how dog fur worked. Fluffy took in a deep breath, and Harry snatched his hand back in alarm. Was Fluffy waking up?

"A-choo!" The head sneezed and Harry was sprayed in snot and dog slobber.

"Gross!" he muttered, then quickly started humming again as the heads started to wake up. He wiped himself off the best he could, then left the room and headed back to the dungeon.

"What happened to you, Potter? Did you mistake a slime pool for the library?" Malfoy sniggered as Harry entered the common room. Zabini shot him a warning look across the chess set they were hunched over. Malfoy shot Harry a quick glare, then turned back to his game. He wished he could have worn his cloak all the way to his room, but it would have been very suspicious if he had shown up there after he had been seen going to the library. Besides, he didn't want to get dog goober over the only reminder he had of his parents!

Harry was heading to his dorm when he was intercepted by a girl a year or two above him who he hadn't met before. She was quiet, and seemed to spend most of her time studying in the common room or library.

She looked at his clothing critically, then raised her wand.

"May I?" She asked politely. Harry didn't really know what she was asking permission for, but figured she probably wouldn't hex him in the middle of the common room now that Bletchley and most of the other Slytherins seemed to like him.

"Um, okay?"

She smiled and muttered a spell that took all the drying dog slobber off his robes, leaving them cleaner than when he'd bought them.

"Thanks!" Harry still wasn't used to his house treating him well, but she had never been outright hostile to him in the past, unlike many of the others who were now treating him like he was someone important.

"No problem," she replied with a smile. "We haven't been properly introduced yet. My name is Johanna Sontau."

Harry smiled shyly as he shook her proffered hand.

"Harry Potter," he replied out of formality, knowing that everyone in the school knew his name.

"Pleasure to meet you! If you get caught by Peeves again, come find me. My mother was teaching me cleaning charms over the summer!" She walked back to her books and was quickly scratching away on a piece of parchment.

How had she been practicing magic over the summer? Harry was confused until he realized that Malfoy had been bragging about spells he had learned at Malfoy Manor from the very beginning of the year. They must have some way to avoid getting caught. As much as Harry knew that he would miss using magic over the summer, it was probably a good thing his relatives thought magic was strictly forbidden. He shuddered at the thought of Dudley practicing spells on him while his own wand was locked in the cupboard under the stairs!

With a small smile, Harry continued on his way to his room. Not only did he have Peeves to blame for anything that happened with Fluffy, but it seemed like he was finally being accepted in the Slytherin house! Now if only he could get his key back from Hagrid and keep up his good luck of avoiding Dudley, second term would be massively more successful than the first.

A/N: I am incredibly sorry for dropping off the face of the earth! Life unfortunately got the better of me, and it's not looking like it'll be much better in the near future... I don't have any chapters written ahead, so my posting will be erratic until I have more time to write in May, most likely. Thank you to everyone who's sticking with me through these long breaks in updates!


	15. Hagrid's Dragon

CHAPTER 15

"Mister Dursley, kindly remain behind after class." Dudley glared at his desk as he roughly shoved his quill and parchment into his backpack. The last thing he wanted was to be stuck alone with his head of house!

As the rest of the students filed out, Professor McGonagall sat at her desk peering over her glasses at the sullen boy slowly making his way up to her desk.

"What?" Dudley grouched as soon as he stood before her. McGonagall pressed her lips together, but made no comment at his lack of respect. Letting her concern show on her face, she got straight to the point.

"Your performance in class recently has been abysmal," she said bluntly. Dudley stared at her, a confused expression on his face.

"You are doing very poorly," she explained, realizing the pudgy boy likely didn't have a very large vocabulary. Judging by the scowl on his face, she had been correct in that assessment.

"Is there anything you would like to talk about? Did anything happen over the holiday that is impacting your ability to learn?"

"No, my Christmas was perfect," Dudley mumbled. "Can I go now?"

"May I," Professor McGonagall corrected automatically.

"What?"

"Never mind, Mister Dursley," she sighed. "You may go, but be aware that I will be sending a letter to your parents, informing them of your recent behaviour."

"Whatever," Dudley muttered as he quickly turned to leave the room.

"You are welcome to come to me, should you ever decide you need to talk to someone," she said softly as he slumped off. Dudley didn't respond.

* * *

Over the next few months, Harry continued to avoid Dudley and his Gryffindor friends. He felt guilty whenever he saw Hermione and Neville shooting him hurt looks in the Great Hall or in potions class, but his resolve to keep them out of Dudley's attention didn't waver. Instead, he started tentatively befriending some of the Slytherin students who were now being nice to him, since Dudley hated them all anyways and wouldn't target them more.

Johanna was quickly becoming his closest friend in the house, and often tried to help him with his homework, since she was in second year and already knew how to do everything he was learning. In some ways, she was a like a less overbearing Hermione, and much less talkative.

"...So you see, you were just moving your wand a bit wrong," Johanna said as she demonstrated the wand movements for the repairing charm for Harry. Harry tried the spell again, and beamed at her as the rip in the fabric sitting between them on the table knit back together.

The best part about being friends with Johanna was that she could teach him the defense spells that Quirrel had been failing to teach them all year. He had started skipping classes occasionally after the troll incident, but now that he was sure he wasn't going to fall behind and didn't seem to be getting in trouble for not going, he almost never went to class.

"Hey Harry," said Blaise from behind, "fancy a game of wizard's chess?"

"Sure!" Harry smiled as he packed away his charms book. "Thanks for the help, Johanna!"

He went over to the table Blaise had his chess game set up at. Although Malfoy could usually be found playing chess in the common room with Blaise, he still refused to associate with Harry. Blaise, on the other hand, was being quite friendly and had been teaching him how to play.

After losing (but not as badly as he had when he first started), Harry excused himself and went out to visit Fluffy.

"Hi boy," Harry said softly as he entered the room. "Good dog!" Fluffy had become so used to the boy's visits that he hardly growled at all and snuffled hopefully as Harry went to his usual corner.

"Sorry, no treats today," Harry giggled. He stuffed his cloak into the knapsack and sat on the floor, facing the giant dog. Fluffy lay down as well, and slowly inched towards him. Harry was still scared of the large fangs, but Fluffy had found out that if he stayed on the ground, he could get the boy to pet his face. After spending so much time alone, Harry supposed that he must be lonely and desperate for attention. Harry would know: after all, he often felt the same way.

He stayed until it was almost suppertime then headed to the library to renew a useful household charms book before going to dinner. Madam Pince had grudgingly allowed him to start taking out books again after a group of older Slytherins had stuck up for him and promised that they would make sure his books stayed in good condition. With Dudley still avoiding him, he had no further troubles with the stern witch.

Surprisingly, Hagrid was in the library, checking a book out for himself. Harry had never seen him in the library before, but since he had been studying in the Slytherin common room since he started avoiding Neville and Hermione, he guessed that maybe the groundskeeper had come before and Harry had just never seen him. Still, he looked awkwardly out of place, and as soon as he saw Harry, he shiftily put the book behind his back.

Ignoring his odd behaviour, Harry happily greeted the man: "Hi Hagrid! How have you been?"

"Oh, pretty good," Hagrid replied as he edged towards the exit. "Bin a bit busy lately is all, y'know how it is."

"If you aren't too terribly busy, would it be okay if I came and visited again?" Harry asked. He hadn't really spoken to the man since their meeting over the holidays and thought it was about time to chat with his friend again.

Hagrid looked momentarily surprised, and his glance shifted away from Harry.

"If you're too busy though, it's okay," He continued, sad that Hagrid didn't seem to want him to come over.

"No, no," the half-giant reassured him, "I don' think I'll ever say no ter a visit from yeh, Harry!"

Harry grinned up at Hagrid. "Brilliant! I'll see you later then!" He happily checked his book out as Hagrid left the library, then headed down for dinner. He belatedly wondered whether he should have reminded Hagrid about the key, but figured that he had seemed so mortified that Harry didn't have it last time that he had probably found it in the meantime.

The next day was a Sunday, and Harry cheerfully headed down to Hagrid's hut after breakfast.

"Hello Harry!" Hagrid greeted him warmly as he held Fang back from the open door.

"Hi Hagrid!"

Harry politely declined the rock cakes, as he'd just eaten breakfast and proceeded to tell Hagrid all about his new Slytherin friends. He quickly removed most of his extra layers of clothing as he talked. It was sweltering in Hagrid's hut!

"Tha's great that yer makin' friends in your house," Hagrid said, a bit unconvincingly. "Wha' happened to yer Gryffindor friends though? Neville an' Hermione?"

"Oh..." Harry trailed off uncomfortably. He missed Neville terribly, but he seemed to be getting along well enough with Hermione when Harry saw them, so he had tried to convince himself that what he was doing was okay if it would protect them from Dudley.

"I don't really want to talk about it," he said instead. There were a few moments of silence while they both tried to think of a new topic.

"Say, Hagrid," Harry asked, "Why is it so hot in here?"

Hagrid's eyes darted over to the fireplace, where a black kettle was set up over a roaring fire. He nervously fidgeted with the book in front of him on the table. As he uncovered the title, Harry read it aloud:

"Dragon breeding for pleasure and profit? Hagrid! Dragon's are real? Are you planning on hatching one?"

Hagrid looked guiltily back at the fire then said wistfully, "I've always wanted a dragon! An' so when a fellow at the pub was bettin' with one I jus' knew I had ter have it!"

"Is the egg in the fire? Can I look at it?" Harry asked excitedly.

"'Course yeh can! Come an' see, but don' touch anythin'!"

"Woah," he breathed. He couldn't believe that dragons were real! "When will it hatch? Can I come see?"

Hagrid's face broke into a large smile at his enthusiasm. "As long as yeh don' tell anyone," he winked conspiratorially.

"I won't, I promise!" Harry agreed earnestly.

Hagrid started showing him the chapter about how to care for a baby dragon, but Harry was getting woozy from the heat and soon had to leave. As he was walking back into the common room, he realized that he had once again forgotten about the key, but wasn't too worried, since he could always ask when he went back to see the dragon hatch!

On Friday morning, Harry was surprised to see a brown school owl swoop down towards him with a note. He fed the bird a bit of his bacon as he unwrapped the note, which read 'It's hatching'.

He quickly finished his breakfast and did his best to hide his excitement from the rest of the Slytherins, who he knew mostly disapproved of Hagrid due to him being half-giant. He walked out of the Great Hall at a normal place, then without even stopping at his common room, he ran down to Hagrid's hut.

"Come in, come in! Quickly, mind, don' want anyone ter see!" Hagrid greeted him. Harry rushed in eagerly sat at the table while Hagrid took the egg out of the fire and set it down so they could watch.

"How long will it take?" Harry asked curiously. He could hear a tapping noise, and there was a small hole in the shell.

"I dunno fer sure. The book's a bit outdated, bu' I don' think it'll be too long now!"

As it turned out, it took a little longer than either of them expected. They chatted a bit as they watched the dragon chipping a line along the circumference of the egg.

"Oh! He's almos' there!" Hagrid exclaimed when the chipping got nearly to the initial hole. They both stared intently as there was a large scraping sound and the egg split open. A crumpled black dragon slid out onto the table. Hagrid seemed to be nearly crying as the baby sneezed and looked up at him.

"Look Harry! He knows his mommy!"

Harry wasn't sure about that, and was a bit nervous when the dragon sneezed again and sparks came out. Still, Hagrid had been right about Fluffy being a softie, so he supposed he should trust that he could look after this pet as well.

* * *

"You think that you're better than me, but you and your family are just a bunch of freaks!" Dudley spat at Malfoy.

"You can't talk like that to me, you mudblood! Wait until my father hears about this!"

Ron had been holding Dudley back, but with that taunt he practically growled with rage and launched himself at Malfoy. Malfoy just smirked and stepped back as Crabbe and Goyle moved in front of him. Without Ron holding him back, Dudley was free to run ahead and join him. Together, they began to hit Crabb and Goyle, who were only too happy to hit back.

The Gryffindors seemed to forget that their anger was directed at Malfoy as they fought the larger Slytherin boys. The noise of the fight soon drew a crowd to the hallway. Physical fighting was so rare, even in school, that all of the wizard-raised students were gaping at the sight.

"Why aren't they using their wands?" a shocked Ravenclaw asked her friend.

"Fighting like commoners!" multiple Slytherins exclaimed in disdain.

"Hah! Good on them!" a couple muggleborns egged them on.

Ron winced as he punched Goyle in the nose. There was a loud crack, and suddenly blood was spurting out of the Slytherin as Ron cradled his hurt hand. Hardly pausing to wipe some blood off his face, Goyle retaliated by punching Ron's stomach so hard he doubled over, then shoving him to the ground. Meanwhile Dudley was using every dirty trick he had picked up in his years of pushing other kids around, ending in kneeing Crabbe in the groin. The Slytherin doubled over in pain.

Professor McGonagall rounded the corner to see a crowd of students. As she quickly pushed her way towards the centre of the group she saw Goyle kicking the youngest Weasley as blood poured out of his nose, and Dursley panting heavily over the prone Crabbe. She raised her wand and caused a loud bang, startling everyone present into freezing where they were.

"Never in all my years at Hogwarts have I seen such a display!" she exclaimed, observing the terrified students around her. "Did none of you think to put a stop to this?" she directed at the ring of students. Guilty faces glanced around, before most eyes drifted to the floor. Nobody would meet her eyes.

"I expect better from all of you," she continued. "Five points will be taken from each bystander for watching this happen, and 20 from each participant!"

A few students looked up in defiance before quelling under her glare. The rest remained staring at the ground, looking suitably chastised.

"All of you, return to your common rooms," she demanded. Nobody moved. "Now!" The students practically took off at a run.

"Not you four," she said, glaring at the bloody boys in front of her. Ron and Crabbe moaned in pain while Goyle and Dudley glared up at her in defiance.

"What do you have to say for yourselves?" she questioned them.

"They attacked us!" Goyle and Dudley yelled at the same time.

"You will talk civilly!" the professor commanded sharply. Ron made a garbled noise, causing her to look down in concern.

"Help your friends up, and we will continue this talk on the way to the hospital wing. I will not tolerate lies or further kerfuffles on the way."

Goyle bodily pulled Crabbe off the ground while Ron used his good hand to accept help from Dudley.

"Malfoy started it," Ron stated as he gingerly limped along.

"And yet, you may notice that Mister Malfoy is not here," Professor McGonagall replied.

"His gang got in our way," Dudley responded angrily.

Professor McGonagall made an exasperated sound as she continued herding them along. "I have made it very clear that fighting is not tolerated here at Hogwarts!"

"Then maybe you should send me home!" Dudley snapped.

"You don't mean that," Ron breathed. "They're not going to expel us, are they?"

Even Crabbe and Goyle looked anxious as they watched the head of Gryffindor push her lips together.

"Expulsion seems unlikely at this point, but I will be discussing your punishment with the Headmaster, and a repeat of this display will not be tolerated!"

Ron practically sagged against Dudley in relief, missing the look of frustration on his friend's face.

As they entered the hospital wing Madam Pomfrey bustled over and tutted at the boys. She carefully separated the two houses and went about mending them as McGonagall went to talk to Dumbledore.

By the time McGonagall returned, all four students were as good as new. They were gathered together and stood with their heads bowed as they waited for her to speak.

"I have discussed your punishment with the headmaster, who is unfortunately too busy to come talk to you himself." Professor McGonagall began. Dudley was perfectly happy about this, since according to his mum, Dumbledore was the reason Harry had to live with them, and Dudley had been told in no uncertain terms to stay as far away from the 'meddling old man' as he could.

"You will be serving one detention each week for a month," she informed them. There was a slightly sour look on her face, as though she thought that this was not enough. Ron audibly sighed in relief.

"In addition, each of your parents will be informed of what happened today, and should any of you find yourself in a physical brawl again, you will be suspended for as long as we deem necessary for you to understand that actions have consequences."

Ron paled drastically, "You don't have to tell my mum, do you?" he all but squeaked. Professor McGonagall didn't deign to respond, and instead just fixed him with a look that would have cowed the most belligerent of students. Dudley didn't see what Ron's problem was. He would just tell his parents that the other boys were insulting him for being a muggleborn, and that Dumbledore was punishing him for it, and they'd be sending him presents to make up for it.

Professor Snape soon showed up, and the heads of houses delivered the two sets of boys back to the common room.

"Your first detention is this Saturday, with Mister Filch. See that you aren't late."

* * *

The week after the dragon had hatched, Harry made his way back to Hagrid's hut after dinner for a visit. As soon as he got in the door he stowed his cloak, which he had brought since it was almost curfew, and was shocked to find that the dragon was already three times as big as it had been last week.

"How fast do dragons grow?" he asked Hagrid warily as he sat far away from the beast, which was vigorously drinking out of a sturdy bucket on the table. Fang seemed to have the same idea as Harry and tried to hide under the boy's legs.

"Don' worry, it's nothin' I can't handle," Hagrid replied, not answering Harry's question. Harry didn't think it looked like Hagrid had it under control though. The house was a mess of bloody chicken feathers and empty brandy bottles, and Hagrid was slightly singed and looked like he hadn't slept since Harry had last seen him.

Harry had been hoping that the dragon would be friendly enough to touch, but by the looks of it, he would be lucky to get away in one piece just from being in the same room. As the dragon finished its meal and began tearing apart a toy Hagrid had sitting on the table, Harry decided that as cool as the dragon was, he didn't really feel safe being so close to it.

"I think I'm going to leave now, Hagrid. It's getting late."

"Yeh don' want ter stay an' play with Norbert a little longer?"

"You named it Norbert?" Harry responded in disbelief.

"Well, he needed a name, didn' he?" Hagrid responded defensively, as if Norbert was a perfectly normal name for a dragon.

Suddenly, while Hagrid was facing Harry to wish him goodbye, they heard Norbert sneeze. This time, instead of sparks, a full jet of flame spewed out of his mouth. They both looked around to see Norbert eyeing a pile of smoldering feathers.

"Your house is made of wood!" Harry realized suddenly, surprised he hadn't noticed sooner.

"Don' worry, it's fine!" Hagrid repeated as Norbert started sneezing violently. A jet of flame came so close to Harry that his robe singed, causing him to stumble back in alarm. He grabbed his bag and ran to the door with Fang as Hagrid desperately tried to put out the multiple fires the sneezing had lit in his house.

As Harry stumbled out of the house he looked behind him to see the roof catching on fire. In horror he clung to Fang to keep him from trying to get back to Hagrid, and nearly sobbed in relief as he saw his friend stumble out away from the fire, wrestling with the dragon.

"Don' worry abou' me!" Hagrid said urgently, "yeh need to leave, now!"

Harry turned and started to run back up to the castle. If he got caught, he'd be in so much trouble!

Rounding a corner as he headed into the castle he ran into someone and got knocked to the ground.

"Please, please, please don't let it be Snape," he thought as he looked up. Dark eyes glinted down at him as his head of house stood over him. He had the worst luck.

"Don't. Move," Snape hissed at him before continuing to run down to Hagrid's hut. Almost in tears, Harry moved into the shadows and hugged his backpack to his chest. Why hadn't he put his cloak back on? A few of the other professors ran past, not noticing him in the shadows.

They got the fire out soon enough, but Hagrid's hut wasn't in good shape. Hopefully he didn't have anything important that wasn't fireproof. Harry sat in a daze until Snape came back and yanked him to his feet by grabbing the back of his robes.

"What did you do!" the man spat.

"N-nothing! I swear! Hagrid is my friend and I was just –"

"You just _happened_ to be visiting Hagrid after curfew on a night when his house caught on fire?" he said, dangerously calm.

Harry didn't want to get Hagrid in trouble. Hagrid had said he wasn't supposed to have one, and Harry didn't think he could deal with Hagrid rejecting him when he had already alienated Neville. All he could manage was a weak, "Yes sir."

Snape practically growled at him and dragged him roughly down to the common room while muttering about arson and expulsion.

"You will report to me first thing tomorrow morning to learn what your punishment will be. In the meantime, take 30 points from Slytherin for being out after curfew and endangering the life of a member of staff. You may also want to pack your trunk," Snape sneered at him before he whirled off.

Harry was so apprehensive that he couldn't sleep. Surely Hagrid would stand up for him, and he wouldn't be facing expulsion! With that fear in mind, he reported to Snape's office and held his breath as he waited for the older man to speak.

"Against my recommendation, and the headmaster's better judgement, you will not be expelled or even suspended," Snape began without preamble. Harry sagged with relief.

"You will be serving one detention a week for a month with some other troublemakers, and once again, the house will be informed of why the house point total has taken another dive."

Harry looked up in fear. He hadn't forgotten what happened after the troll incident, and was hoping that the change in attitude toward him would prevent something that bad from happening again.

"Your first detention will be served tomorrow night with Mister Filch," Snape informed him then pointedly looked at the door, before bending over some papers on his desk.

Harry knew exactly who the 'troublemakers' Snape was referring to were. He was going to be spending a whole evening with the one person he had been avoiding the most for the past 4 months. Lovely.

A/N: This story isn't abandoned! But life is really getting in the way of writing. Thanks to everyone who's stuck around through the hiatus, and to the people who messaged to see when the next chapter was coming out! I can't promise that I'll be posting weekly again, but I'll try not to let months go by without an update. As always, I look forward to hearing what you think!


	16. Detention in the Forbidden Forest

CHAPTER 16

The next evening, Dudley stormed down to meet Filch with Ron.

"Cheer up, mate, he's just gonna make us clean some more trophies or something," Ron tried to console his friend. The Gryffindors had been in detention with Filch multiple times by now, and the cleaning he made them do wasn't nearly as bad as having to clean dirty cauldrons with Snape breathing over their shoulders!

"Whatever."

At the entrance hall, the boys weren't surprised to see Crabbe and Goyle being dropped off by their head of house.

"Probably too dumb to get here by themselves!" Ron joked.

They were, however, very surprised by the third figure that stepped out of the shadows.

"I'm not doing detention with him!" Dudley said vehemently. He'd been doing a fine job at pretending Harry didn't exist for the past couple months, and saw no reason to quit now. It was bad enough that he always knew in the back of his mind that when the summer came, he'd be stuck with the freak in his house again, ruining his plans and being a burden on the family; now his cousin had to make detention unbearable as well!

"Oh, you'll do the detention alright," Filch cackled as he pushed the door open. "Thought you were above the rules, did you? Well, lookit where it's gotten you now! If only the old punishments were still around…" He lit a lamp and went into the darkness ahead of them, mumbling about chains and belt buckles.

Dudley stalked after him, trodding heavily on Harry's foot as he walked past. They made their way slowly out of the castle and towards the groundskeeper's hut. Hagrid greeted them at his door with a large crossbow slung over his back and his dog at his feet. Dudley glared at the man who had abused his father, but Hagrid either didn't notice or didn't care.

"Alrigh' there? Harry?" he asked them with a worried look, after sending Filch back up to the castle. Of course he asked Harry specifically. His cousin just had to get the nice treatment from everyone in the castle. It wasn't fair! Didn't they see that he wasn't special like they thought he was?

"Are we _really_ going into the woods at night?" Ron squeaked. "Isn't that, you know, dangerous?"

"Yeh'll be safe enough, if yeh stick together an' pay attention," was Hagrid's offhand response as he started leading them into the Forbidden Forest.

Harry walked up to Hagrid and took the lead with him. The talked quietly as the rest of the boys trailed behind. Dudley strained his ears, but couldn't make out what they were saying. Were they talking about what the half-giant had done to his father? Were they making plans for what Harry could do in the future? His cousin had been sorted into Slytherin after all… did that mean that he was 'getting ideas', as his father said? Dudley would have to mention this friendship between the freak and the groundskeeper in his next letter home. Maybe his parents would forbid his cousin from talking to Hagrid in the future!

Suddenly they came to a stop at a fork in the path.

"Right then, see this shiny stuff on the ground?" Hagrid said, pointing to a silvery puddle. Dudley hadn't been paying much attention to the forest as they walked, but now realized that the liquid was all over leaves and in puddles along the path.

"This is unicorn blood," Hagrid told them with a frown on his face. "Summat's bin goin' after them recently, an' I want ter find the one that got hurt yesterday - put it out of its misery if I have to. To cover more distance, we're gonna split into two parties, one with me an' one with Fang, an' try both directions of the trail."

"But Hagrid, isn't it dangerous to split up?" Harry asked.

"Don' worry, so long as yer with me or Fang there's nothin' in here that'll hurt yeh. All right, yeh three'll go with Fang an' the other two'll come with me."

Harry, Goyle and Ron walked down the path to the left, leaving Dudley stuck with Hagrid and Crabbe. The two boys roughly elbowed into each other as they trailed after Hagrid. They were so busy with their miniature feud that Dudley almost ran into Hagrid's back when he suddenly stopped and whirled around, shouting at them to get behind a large tree.

Dudley and Crabbe listened intently, trying to dampen the noise of their ragged breathing. Dudley was trying not to completely panic - they were behind a large man with a large crossbow, after all - but the muffled sounds of something out there in the forest was almost too much to handle! Crabbe made a small whimpering noise as Hagrid tensed up, ready to shoot if the noise got closer, but after a few seconds it faded back into the woods.

"Stick close now," Hagrid muttered after a moment of strained silence. "Whatever that was, it's not s'pposed to be here!"

This time Dudley and Crabbe payed much more attention to the forest than each other as they continued down the trail. Dudley felt like something was watching them, and got the unpleasant feeling that instead of Harry hunting, there was a Dudley hunting game taking place. The tension ratcheted up as they reached a clearing where something was definitely moving - Luckily, it seemed that it was just a man named Ronan, who Hagrid knew. Dudley shuffled slightly to peek around Hagrid's side to see for himself.

He bit back a yelp as he caught a glimpse of Ronan; The 'man' wasn't a man at all! He had a horse's body where his legs should have been!

"Filthy creature," he heard Crabbe mutter from around Hagrid's other side, and for once had to agree with the Slytherin. That _thing_ was unnatural! It had no right to exist at all! He ducked back behind Hagrid while the half-giant tried unsuccessfully to get the horse-man to answer his questions. He was still trying to come to terms with this backwards world he'd been thrown into when the creatures left and Hagrid started herding them further down the path.

"Do they just… live here? In the forest?" Dudley asked Crabbe incredulously, their house rivalry momentarily forgotten.

"Yeah," the boy grunted. "They're savages," he added helpfully.

"Tha's enough talkin'," Hagrid said grumpily. "Centaurs may live with their heads in the clouds, but they're not savages, an' I won' hear another word abou' them!"

Dudley was more inclined to believe Crabbe. After all, what respectable man would live in the forest, and how hard could it possibly be to give a straight answer! Never trust a man who used too many fancy words - that's what his father always said.

They crept on in silence.

"Hmm, the blood's gettin' older this way. See how it's gettin' dried at the edges? We oughtter head back."

Dudley stifled a groan as they started walking back the way they'd come. All this effort for nothing! Soon, however, they noticed red sparks coming up through the trees.

"The others are in trouble!" Hagrid exclaimed. "Follow the path, but wait fer us at the fork in the road!" He lumbered out of sight leaving the two boys alone in the forest. Dudley stood rooted to the spot in shock. The others were in trouble, so Hagrid thought is was a good idea to leave him and Crabbe alone, without even a dog to protect them? His parents would not be happy about this.

"I can't believe that… that freak left us alone!" Dudley sputtered, forgetting for a moment that the other boy was a slimy Slytherin, and therefore his enemy.

"Yeah," Crabbe grunted. "Malfoy says that his father's been trying to get rid of the oaf ever since he got onto the board of directors at Hogwarts."

It was probably the longest sentence Dudley had ever heard Crabbe utter. Then again, whenever they fought in the halls, it was usually Malfoy doing all the talking.

The boys started carefully making their way back down the path, listening very carefully for anything that may be out lurking in the darkness. Every snap of twigs and rustle of leaves sounded as loud as a gunshot, and their breathing rasped harshly through the inky darkness. The dim light from the tips of their wands seemed utterly insufficient, and Dudley felt as though the night was hostile, and pressing heavily in on them. His wand light flickered for a moment as his attention wavered. In an attempt to cut through the tension, he decided to distract himself by talking to the boy beside him.

"Why d'you think made the others send up the sparks?"

"I dunno," Crabbe responded. Dudley huffed in annoyance.

"I bet Harry got scared without his pet giant," Dudley continued. "I bet they weren't even in danger at all!"

"Yeah, maybe."

"He always does this," Dudley complained, undiscouraged by Crabbe's lack of real responses. "He always has to have all the attention!"

"Hmm," grunted Crabbe as he peered into the darkness.

Dudley continued ranting about his cousin as they walked together. Talking made the darkness a little less scary, and although Crabbe didn't say much, he made the occasional sympathetic noise, which Dudley appreciated. Ron was good to talk to and all, but he argued with Dudley, and didn't always take his side! In a way, Crabbe reminded him a lot of his friends back home. For the first time, Dudley found himself getting along with someone outside of Gryffindor!

It wouldn't last, of course. He knew that they'd go right back to fighting when they got back to school, but it couldn't hurt to work together for just a few minutes in the meantime. They rounded a corner in the path, and at long last found themselves back at the fork in the road.

Hagrid was having a very intense discussion with one of the horse-people, while Harry practically clung to the dog at his feet. His cousin was white and shaky, and Ron and Goyle also looked terrified.

"DUDLEY!" Ron exclaimed, as soon as he saw his friend. "I'm so glad you're alright, mate!"

"What happened to you?" Dudley asked.

"You're never going to believe it!" Ron whispered to him as he shot a glare at Crabbe who was still at Dudley's side. Dudley gave the Slytherin a pointed look, and promptly forgot he had ever considered him friendly. Crabbe shrugged and walked over to Goyle.

"Well?" Dudley prompted impatiently.

"We were following the path, and then all of a sudden there was a _unicorn_ laying there, right in front of us in a clearing!" Ron started. "It was magnificent, Dudley! I dunno how many people have seen a real unicorn, but I bet it's not many," he boasted lightly.

"Mmm," Dudley grunted. He didn't really care to see a unicorn himself. If it was anything like a horse, he imagined it to be all sweaty and smelly like the horses he'd seen once at the park.

"Of course I was looking at the unicorn at first, but then we noticed something crouched over it," Ron continued, his voice filling with disgust. "It was drinking the blood! Firenze - he gestured to the horse-person talking to Hagrid - says that only someone truly desperate would drink unicorn blood. It curses you, to do something that horrible!"

Dudley wrinkled his nose in disgust. Drinking any kind of blood would be disgusting! Especially the unnatural silvery stuff the unicorn had been leaking. Even the blood of magical creatures didn't have the decency to be normal!

"Goyle turned right around a screamed like a little girl as he scarpered," Ron told him in glee, carefully omitting the fact that he may have screamed a little himself. "But that got the attention of whatever it was drinking the blood… It turned around and there was silver blood dripping down from out of the hood! I started to run away, and sent up red sparks, like any reasonable person would, but then when I looked back, Potter was on the ground, frozen to the spot while the thing that was drinking the blood was moving over to him! I thought he was a goner for sure."

Dudley momentarily wished the hooded figure HAD gotten his wimp of a cousin so he could have his family to himself, but then felt a little guilty. He wanted the freak _gone_ , not dead.

"Then it gets even weirder!" Ron exclaimed. Dudley wasn't sure what would be weirder than a creepy thing in a cloak drinking unicorn blood, and wasn't sure he wanted to find out, but he needed to hear the end of the story!

"A DRAGON came out of the woods and spat fire at the thing attacking Potter!"

"A dragon?!" Dudley knew he should stop being surprised that things that shouldn't exist, did, but come on! Dragons?!

"Yeah! I think it was a Norwegian Ridgeback even! The most dangerous dragon out there! My brother Charlie works with them!"

"Whaa… does the type of dragon matter? Why are there dragons in here?! What kind of school keeps dragons in the forest?" If anything Dudey had ever seen on the telly was even remotely true, he had no interest in running into a dragon!

His response had been much louder than Ron's whispers, and attracted the attention of Hagrid. The half-giant looked almost surprised to notice the children.

"I oughtter get these students back ter bed," he told the horse-person. "Thanks fer yer help." He didn't sound entirely sincere, and stomped grouchily as he started leading them back to the castle.

As the Gryffindors followed Hagrid, Ron picked up where he'd left off his story:

"It was a _small_ dragon, so not really that dangerous! But after it scared the creepy cloaked thing, it turned around and started looking like it might breathe fire on Potter! Then Firenze came and scared it off."

"You almost got roasted by a dragon?" Dudley asked testily. "And you don't see anything wrong with that?"

"I dunno," Ron replied, "I reckon stuff like that happens all the time here. Anyways, Potter called the dragon _Norbert_! I'd bet five knuts that Hagrid has something to do with it. How else would someone like Potter know a dragon?"

"I don't care how he knows it," Dudley decided, "I just want it gone!"

Dudley was in a terrible mood all the way to their dorm, and almost considered writing to his parents before going to sleep, but ultimately, he was far too tired.

* * *

Meanwhile, Harry lay in bed unable to sleep. He just knew he was going to get horrid nightmares if he let himself close his eyes! Instead, he dragged his cloak out of his chest and went for a walk around the castle to think.

He couldn't get the image of the hooded figure with silvery blood dripping down its front out of his mind. Firenze had let Harry lean on him as they walked back, because Ron and Goyle hadn't seemed too keen on helping him, but while they had walked he had led Harry to the conclusion that it had been Voldemort drinking the blood. He didn't know how it was possible for Voldemort to be in the Forbidden Forest, since Harry was supposed to have killed him and all, but Firenze did seem to know what he was talking about.

It was a good thing Norbert had been there to scare him off, even if he had then turned and started coming towards Harry.

But why would Voldemort be here? Why come to a school that was, by all accounts, incredibly well protected? Maybe unicorns were easiest to find here, but that seemed unlikely. Harry had been around Slytherins enough to know that if they were doing something risky, there had to be a big enough gain to make it worthwhile. For Voldemort to risk coming to Hogwarts and drinking cursed blood, something really important must be nearby!

Pausing his jumbled train of thought, Harry found himself at Fluffy's door.

"Alohomora," he whispered, and snuck in through the crack. Fluffy was fast asleep, his heads all snoring and drooling on the floor. After his close encounter in the forest, Harry was feeling brave, so he set his cloak far away from the drool puddles and went over to the sleeping dog.

"You won't believe what happened to me tonight," he murmured as he started petting the closest neck.

Fluffy growled in his sleep at the touch, but calmed down as Harry continued to talk. The young Slytherin told Fluffy the whole story of what had happened in the forest, and ended up sitting down and leaning against the dog's side. It was warm, and feeling Fluffy's breathing was comforting.

"So why do you think he's here?" Harry asked sleepily when he was finished talking. He felt a little silly for asking when Fluffy's only response was a rumbling sigh. It would be nice if Neville were here to talk to instead, but keeping him off of Dudley's radar was more important than feeling a little lonely sometimes.

"I even miss Hermione," he confided in Fluffy. Sure, she was annoying, but she genuinely seemed to care. She did have a tendency to come up with far-fetched theories though. He thought back to Halloween, when she had tried to convince him that whatever Hagrid had taken from the vault was what Fluffy was guarding. It had seemed a bit ridiculous then, but now… it was definitely seeming more plausible.

While he had been busy befriending Fluffy, he had ignored the trap door and what lay beyond it, but now he found himself wondering what was below? And if he could befriend Fluffy, couldn't anyone? Was it really safe from Voldemort?

Maybe he should take a look, just to check that it was protected by more than just a big dog and a trap door. Besides, since he wasn't trying his best in class, he didn't need to study as much as most of the other students, although doing each assignment twice was a bit time consuming. With a newfound sense of purpose, he headed back to his dorm. He was going to see what lay beyond the trap door, and make sure Voldemort could never get it!

A/N: Once again, I apologize for the infrequency of story updates... it's great to see that people are still reading! I think part of the problem was that I had no real plan for the story after second year, and now I've finally come up with at least one direction the story could take that makes sense and isn't the same as every other slytherin!harry story. Anyways, thanks as always to everyone who reviewed/faved/followed the story! It's good motivation not to abandon things :)


	17. The dragon is revealed

CHAPTER 17

 _Dear mummy and daddy,_

 _Hogwarts is the worst school ever! They made me do detention in the forbidden forest last night and there was a DRAGON that could have roasted me alive and a bunch of freaky horse-people and unicorns with gross silver blood. Ron says some creepy hooded guy was drinking the blood! He went after the freak, but the dragon and a horse-person scared him away. Ron says he heard Harry talking to one of the horse-people, and the horse-person says that the creepy guy is Voldemort. But that's impossible! Because you promised the terrorist was dead. You promised! Then Ron went and told Granger. She's that super annoying bookwork I told you about. And now she thinks Voldemort is trying to steal whatever that freaky 3 headed dog is guarding. She tried to tell the teachers, but I made her stop. I won't get loaded with a million detentions just because some freaky bookworm thinks something impossible! Because it's not Voldemort! It can't be! Why would anyone trust a freaky horse-man!_

 _Why do I have to go to school here? I want to go to Smeltings! I bet they'd beat up all these crazy magicians and send the nasty unnatural things in the forest packing! WHAM!_

 _From, Dudley_

 _PS send more sweets_

"DRAGONS?!," Vernon roared after Petunia finished reading his son's most recent letter to him. His flabby face had been gaining colour through his wife's reading of the letter, so by the time it was done, it was an angry puce.

"Oh my," Petunia replied faintly as she clutched the letter to her heart.

"THAT BLOODY SCHOOL LET MY DUDDERS WANDER AROUND A BLOODY FOREST FULL OF DRAGONS?!" Vernon began to pace angrily around the room.

"I didn't agree to allow Dudley to go to that horrible, freaky place to get him eaten by a dragon," he vented.

"My sister never said anything about dragons," Petunia muttered in horror as her eyes darted about following her husband's movement.

"I'm going to give that Dumbledore a right piece of my mind," Vernon growled. "Get me a pen and paper, Pet!"

"...I thought she was at least safe while she was at school," Petunia continued, oblivious to Vernon's command. She became aware, however, when he came to a stop in front of her and stood expectantly while panting from the exertion of moving his enormous frame.

Together, the two of them wrote a very strongly-worded letter to the headmaster. Neither had any idea how one would go about taking legal action against a magical school that by all accounts shouldn't exist, but if this had been a normal school, you'd better believe that the press and the lawyers would be hearing all about this!

* * *

"HARRY!"

"Sorry! I'm so sorry!"

Johanna frantically patted out the flames that were crawling up the sleeve of her robe. She had been helping Harry with his charms spellwork, but his wand tended to have a bit of a violent reaction to even the simplest of spells occasionally.

"That wand is a menace! I can't believe you don't have a proper one!"

"Sorry!" Harry squeaked again. It was so frustrating trying to do spells when his wand wouldn't cooperate! Besides, he was tired and distracted by his detention in the forest the night before. It was usually when he wasn't concentrating fully that his wand acted out.

"Oh well, no real harm done," Johanna smiled at him. "How about we go over the theory a bit more, okay?"

From his seat in a chair nearby Malfoy started sniggering. "The theory isn't going to do him much good if he can't even cast a simple incendio!"

Beside him, Goyle tried and failed to suppress a giggle.

"I'd like to see you do half as well with a mismatched wand, Malfoy!" Johanna defended Harry.

Harry smiled at her gratefully. It was really nice having a friend that stood up for him against Malfoy! Well, not counting Hermione, but he'd hardly spoken to her since Dudley had blackened her eye.

Harry was still studying when Snape came into the common room with his typical scowl firmly in place.

He stood expectantly by the door, and soon the room silenced in anticipation of some sort of announcement. Their head of house didn't often have much to say, and when he did, it was best to listen.

"It has come to my attention that some dunderhead has been illegally raising a dragon at Hogwarts," he told them, his eyes flicking over in the direction of the first years.

"It was that half-breed oaf! Just wait until my father hears! I bet they'll have to sack him!" Malfoy interrupted gleefully.

"I am not finished speaking, Mister Malfoy," Snape said, with far less bite than any time he had spoken to Harry. "While I can neither confirm nor deny the identity of this person, I can assure you that nobody will be losing their job, and the beast will be removed by the end of the day." He didn't look pleased about this. Malfoy also looked horribly affronted.

Snape continued talking, his features assuming a bored expression. "The headmaster would like to assure you that your safety is of the highest priority here at Hogwarts. If you have any further questions or concerns, you may bring them to your prefects, who will bring them to me in turn."

With that, he walked out of the room, ignoring the raised hand of one of the third or fourth years. The second he was gone, everyone started talking at once.

"Someone was raising a dragon and nobody noticed?!"

"I can't believe they aren't sacking the groundskeeper!"

Harry started packing up his books. He didn't want to be around for this conversation. In fact, he already felt bad about his involvement. Should he have tried to persuade Hagrid to give up the dragon before anyone had found out? It had been pretty obvious that it was getting out of control when it had set Hagrid's hut on fire!

"Wait, where are you going?" Johanna asked him.

"Oh, um, I was just done studying," he lied poorly, stuffing a half-finished essay into his bag.

"Why are you lying?" Johanna narrowed her eyes. "You've been to see Hagrid before. Did you know about this?"

"Uhhh," Harry tried to think of something to say that wouldn't seem suspicious.

"So you did know!" she exclaimed. "You idiot!" she jabbed her finger into his chest, "someone could have gotten seriously hurt, but instead of telling anyone you kept a secret for that half-breed?!"

Harry looked at her in shock. Hagrid was his friend, and the only one he'd heard call him a half-breed was Malfoy, so he was pretty sure it wasn't a nice thing to say.

Johanna clapped her hands over her mouth and locked eyes with someone over Harry's shoulder.

"I mean, _you_ could have been hurt! That would be terrible!" she tried to backpedal.

Harry didn't respond, and fled to his room before anyone else in the common room could say anything to him.

A while later, he snuck out under his cloak. He had found some rope in one of the broom closets that were scattered around the castle, and was debating whether it would be strong enough to hold him if he tried to go down the trapdoor on it. The common room had much fewer people in it, since it was almost time for dinner. Blaise was complaining to Theo about always losing chess games to Malfoy:

"Of course he always wins! He's only trained the black side, and he always makes me play white! If we had a new set, I'm sure I could beat him…"

On the other side of the room, one of the oldest students seemed to be having an angry discussion with someone much smaller than him. It wasn't until he was almost at the door that the older Slytherin moved enough for Harry to see that he was talking to Johanna. He considered sneaking over to hear what they were saying, but felt bad about spying on his friend, even if he was confused and upset about her reaction to the dragon.

His stomach growled rebelliously as he walked towards the third floor instead of the Great Hall, but he ignored it. There was no way he was talking to anyone tonight! Fluffy grumbled half-heartedly when Harry didn't have any treats, but otherwise ignored him.

Harry grabbed the rope out of his backpack and tried to think of what he could tie it to. He didn't know any proper knots, but maybe he could get Fluffy to hold it in his teeth.

"Hey boy!" he said to the dog, "Want to play with the rope?"

He waggled the end in the air and flinched back as one of the heads got interested and grabbed it. He gave a bit of an experimental tug, but that excited Fluffy and only succeeded in getting the head to yank back, like they were playing tug-of-war. Unfortunately, Harry probably weighed less than one of Fluffy's heads, so he went flying forward and landed in a heap of the floor.

"Oof! Fluffy! We're not playing a game!"

Fluffy nosed at the small boy in front of him, but quickly lost interest and started playing tug-of-war with two of its heads quite enthusiastically. Harry was just getting up when Fluffy suddenly dropped the rope and began to stare intently at the door. Harry managed to dive to the corner and throw his cloak over himself just as the door opened and Snape walked in with hunks of raw meat levitating in front of him.

Without the time to cast the spell to make him silent, which he had finally mastered well enough that he was confident that he wouldn't accidentally spell his voice box gone, he hardly dared to breathe. Harry watched as Snape directed food to each of the heads, all the while grumbling about the task. He was about to leave when he noticed the rope at Fluffy's feet. His scowl morphed to a look of concern and surprise as he inspected the drool-covered rope.

Luckily for Harry, who had worried that he was in for round two of the library incident, he grabbed the rope and rushed out of the room without looking for anyone.

After counting to fifty to make sure Snape was far away, Harry rushed back to his dorm, being careful to stay under the cloak the whole way.

He still didn't know what was down the trap door, but with someone as powerful as Snape worried, Harry was even more determined to make sure that it was safe from Voldemort, or whoever was going after it!

Later that week, Harry took some time to go to the library to see if he could find a book about tying knots. He really hoped there would be something non-magical, since with his wand and his luck, there was no way he'd be trusting any sticking charms!

He was wandering down the isles, trailing a finger over the spines of the books when he almost literally ran into Hermione.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't see you... Harry!" Hermione's face lit up when she noticed who it was.

Never one for subtlety, she immediately asked, "why are you avoiding me? Is this still because of Dudley? Or because you made new friends and now you don't like me anymore?"

Harry ran his hand through his messy hair. "I still like you, Hermione, but I figured that maybe since you and Neville are friends now, you wouldn't need to be friends with me. Especially not with Dudley out to get anyone who likes me!"

"Silly boy!" she hugged him tightly, causing Harry to stiffen with the sudden proximity. Not only was he not used to shows of affection, physical or otherwise, but it was a _girl_. Ew!

"That's not your choice. I get to pick who I'm friends with! Not you, and not Dudley either! And I like Neville fine, but he's not you so it's not the same. I've missed you!"

Harry hadn't really thought about it like that. He had only cared that Hermione wouldn't be punished because he wanted friends so badly. Plus, he realized guiltily that since everyone was being much nicer to him this term, and he had other friends in Slytherin, he had stopped remembering why he missed his Gryffindor friends.

"I'm sorry," he said awkwardly. "Do you want to study together?"

"That would be lovely!" she beamed. "What book are you looking for? I bet I can help you find it!"

"Oh, uh, I want to learn to tie knots," he said, before mentally berating himself. Tying knots! Could he get any more suspicious?

"You want to tie knots?" she parroted with a look of disbelief on her face.

Harry used the first excuse that came to mind: "I'm done my homework and I saw some Boy Scouts learning knots after school one day and it looked like fun." He held his breath, hoping she would believe him.

"Okay..." she obviously wasn't convinced, but she didn't question him further as she led him to the muggle studies section.

"I've checked, and they don't seem to have many books that aren't about magic here, and what they do have is mostly pretty old..." she trailed off as she scanned the spines in front of her. "Ah! Here, I think I've found just what you're looking for!"

She handed him a worn Boy Scout manual that was coated in a layer of dust and probably hadn't been opened for years.

After thumbing through the pages he smiled at her. "Yeah, this is perfect!"

"Listen, speaking of knots," she whispered as she looked around to make sure they were alone, "Guess who I saw carrying around a bundle of rope the other day!"

Harry had a nasty feeling that he knew who she was talking about, but pretended that he didn't.

"It was Professor Snape! And remember how he had that bite on his leg after Halloween?"

"Yes..."

"I never thought I'd say this... especially because Dumbledore himself hired him, but... what if Snape's trying to steal what's hidden on the third floor?"

Harry's stomach dropped. He had hoped that she would have stopped thinking about that by now.

"He's a professor! He's probably helping protect it!" It was a bit ironic that he was defending a man who would surely never take his side, but he had to convince Hermione that it wasn't Snape!

"Of course I would normally be saying the same thing," she replied thoughtfully, "But you have to admit that he's acting suspicious!"

"He's just a grouchy git," Harry griped.

"You can't talk about a professor that way!" Hermione immediately responded.

"But you just convinced him of working for Voldemort!" Sometimes girls made no sense.

"That's not the same," she blustered, "Ron says he was a death..." she trailed off as Harry suddenly ducked behind a stack of books. She turned around and noticed that one of the other first year Slytherins was only a few meters away.

"Would you mind studying somewhere more private?" Harry asked Hermione hopefully when he re-emerged.

"Why private?" Hermione demanded, her voice rising to a shrill whisper. "Are you embarrassed to be friends with me or something, now that you have other friends?"

"What? No! I said I wanted to be friends still, didn't I? I just mean that Slytherins aren't supposed to be friends with Gryffindors!"

"I don't care," she insisted belligerently, as she stamped her foot and crossed her arms. "And if you really liked me, you wouldn't care either!"

"But Hermione! They might get mad at you and me! I don't want everyone to be even madder at me! And I don't want them to bully you!"

"You're just picking your slimy Slytherin friends over me!" she accused him. "Well I'll make it so you don't even have to pretend the choice is hard! Goodbye!"

Theo poked his head around the corner as he noticed the angry Gryffindor storm by.

"How'd you get her so angry?" he asked Harry in awe. "I've only ever seen Draco get her that mad!"

"I have to go..." Harry responded without answering the question and rushed away. He could have tried to chase after her, but by the time he had checked the book out it was unlikely he'd be able to catch up to her.

Instead, he looked around some more cupboards until he found another good piece of rope. He jammed it into his backpack and went down to the dungeons to find an empty classroom with a low ceiling and an exposed pipe he could loop the rope around to practice with. He locked the door behind him, hoping that would be enough to stop anyone from coming in.

The reef knot seemed to be wrong, and he really didn't want a noose, but eventually he settled on a knot called the bowline. The book had step-by-step instructions with pictures that didn't move like the magical books, but were still very useful. The first couple of times he tried it, it turned out all wrong, and the thick rope was tough to tie and untie. Then he realized that he could practice on his shoelace, which was much easier.

Soon, his knot looked like the one in the picture, and he managed to tie the big rope to the pipe. He pushed away the desk he had used to reach high enough and tried pulling himself up on the rope. He wasn't very strong, but he had a very small frame, so he was able to climb up and down with very little slipping.

The rope had made his hands red and sore, and as he was rubbing them and wondering whether his herbology gloves would give him a better grip, he saw something silvery come through the wall from the corner of his eye. He didn't pay it any attention, as ghosts rarely had reason to talk to him, when it suddenly blew a loud raspberry.

"Peeves!"

"The one and only!" the poltergeist bowed mockingly. "And what has potty wee Potter done this time? Making a noose to hang poor old Peevesy?" He mimed getting strangled by a noose and started zooming around in a circle at the end of it.

Harry dropped to the floor to avoid getting caught by the spinning menace.

"Wheeeeeeeeeee!" Peeves cackled gleefully as he gained momentum.

Soon, he let go of the rope and shot off through a wall. Harry left the rope where he was, grabbed his bag and hastily left the room. As he rushed down the hallway he heard Peeves back in the room, spinning so low that he knocked over chairs and tables as he went around.

Harry shuddered. Peeves was horrible! Ghosts were one thing, but did poltergeists really have to exist? Besides, now he needed to find more rope. Again.

A/N: This chapter brought to you by some motivating reviews I received this week, plus a long flight! I'll have another couple hours on a plane next week as well, so fingers crossed that I can get some more writing done then. Especially since I've finally settled on some important plot points for later in the story, and am impatient to write them, which means I have to finish this year first! As always, your comments are welcome and I hope you enjoy the chapter.


	18. Down the Trap Door

CHAPTER 18

Dudley dreaded his next detention all week. Surely they wouldn't send him out into the forest again, seeing as they'd nearly gotten killed the last time, right? But his parents had written back saying that they didn't know what to do, and that scared him more than he would ever admit to anyone. His mum and dad always knew how help him! It was these horrible wizards messing everything up!

One day after transfiguration, Professor McGonagall got Dudley to stay behind after class.

"Do you have a moment to talk, Mister Dursley?" she asked politely. It wasn't really a question.

"Whatever," Dudley replied as he inched towards the door.

"The headmaster recently received a troubling letter from your parents. They seemed to believe that your safety was in jeopardy during your last detention."

"It was!"

Dudley didn't see where a game show fit in with his safety, but he was very sure he had been in danger. "I could've been roasted by the dragon, or murdered by the creepy hooded guy! The bloody groundskeeper left me alone in the middle of the forest with only a slimy Slytherin for ages!"

"Language," the professor said automatically, but she seemed to at least be considering what he had said. For once, it seemed like the pudgy first year wasn't lying.

"Regardless of any danger you perceived yourself to be in, I can assure you that students are very safe here at Hogwarts. To further reassure you, I will arrange for the rest of your detentions to be served under other supervisors."

That was a relief to Dudley. He never wanted to be near the forest or the giant ever again!

"On that topic, you will report to my office with Mister Weasley for your next detention. I'm sure I don't have to remind you not to be late."

Assuming he had been dismissed, Dudley grunted and left the room. He told Ron about the change in detention later in the common room.

"Thank goodness!" Ron grimaced, "I swear, I'll never complain about writing lines ever again!"

"Do you really think the professors would let you get into any real danger?" Hermione butt in. "I bet you were safe the whole time."

" _I bet you were safe the whole time_ ," Dudley mocked in a high, squeaky voice. "Ugh, you're such a teacher's pet!"

Hermione growled in frustration, but didn't storm off as she often did. She obviously had something she really wanted to talk about with them. Dudley lost interest in her and flopped onto a chair where his attention was much better spent on the sweets his parents had sent with their last letter.

Dudley only began to pay attention to Ron again when the bushy-haired know-it-all finally left the room.

"You were right about your cousin," Ron told him.

 _Duh_ , thought Dudley.

"He was actually defending Snape from Hermione! She saw the greasy git with a bunch of slimy rope near the third floor the other day."

"So?" Dudley asked, content to ignore the foul man as much as possible.

"So it looked like dog slobber! She thinks Snape's working for whoever the man in the forest was to steal what's on the third floor!"

"Hermione finally realized that Snape's evil?"

Dudley was shocked. He'd thought there was no hope for that girl! He gave Ron more attention as he continued talking.

"She reckons we should tell a teacher. A better one, I mean. Maybe they'll believe us now that we know more!"

"Yeah right," Dudley huffed. "Teachers never believe anything you can't prove. You can get away with anything if you can lie and look innocent!"

Dudley's smirk was making Ron a bit uncomfortable, so instead he told Ron about the latest dragon gossip.

"My brother Charlie says they're coming to get the dragon tonight! I wonder if he'll be in the paper! I wish my picture was in the paper, wrangling a dragon!"

"The paper?" Dudley was shocked. "You lot have a newspaper?"

Ron was baffled. Of course they had a paper! He knew Dudley was clueless, but how had he missed multiple people getting the Daily Prophet in the post every morning? To be honest, Dudley had never given it much thought. The magical people seemed so backwards and behind that he'd never imagined them having something as mundane as the paper.

* * *

Harry, of course, knew about the paper. All business was Slytherin's business, so naturally the articles in the Daily Prophet were often discussed. It made his head spin, trying to keep up with the subtle undertones these conversations held. Johanna had once tried to explain the subtext behind a conversation on hair products in witches weekly, but he just couldn't understand how a curling cream related to the marriage prospects of someone's older cousin!

Johanna assured him that he would learn how to couch what he really wanted to say behind benign conversation, but he wasn't sure he wanted to. He just wished people would say what they meant to begin with.

Really, animals were much easier, Harry thought to himself as he sat over his bubbling bruise salve. Fluffy was laying on the floor making the occasional whining noise to let Harry know what he should really be paying attention to. The giant dog slowly shuffled over so that one of its heads was almost in Harry's lap. Harry smiled and gently gave it a scratch with his left hand while his right continued to stir the potion.

When his fresh bruise salve was carefully sealed in some glass jars he had conveniently found abandoned in a closet, he gave Fluffy the attention he was looking for. The heads jostled for position, making Harry wish he had an extra hand so none of them would feel left out. When Fluffy had gotten enough attention, Harry pulled out the rope he intended to use to go down the trap door.

He looked around the room, trying to find something to tie the end to, but nothing immediately stood out to him. Getting Fluffy to hold the rope in his mouth had already proven to be a terrible idea, so instead Harry eyed the thick collars around Fluffy's necks. He was worried that he would hurt Fluffy's neck if he just tied it to one collar, so he decided to loop it through all 3, with enough slack that it wouldn't pull the heads together uncomfortably.

With a firm plan in mind, he reached for the nearest collar. Fluffy began to growl at him when he gave an experimental tug on the collar, so he started humming to make sure he wouldn't lose an arm during his experiment. He double-checked his knot three times, just to make sure it wouldn't slip when he put his full weight on it, then cautiously pulled the trap door open. Even in his sleep, Fluffy growled as Harry looked into the darkness and pushed his rope through the opening.

Deciding that he had to go right then or risk losing his nerve, Harry muttered a quick "lumos" so he wouldn't accidentally run into anything nasty, and gingerly held his wand between his teeth so his hands would be free to climb. He sat on the floor and gingerly lowered himself through the trap door. Just in case Fluffy forgot that they were friends now that Harry was sneaking past him, he kept up his humming, making it as loud as possible so Fluffy wouldn't move.

He quickly remembered how the rope hurt his hands as he started to climb down it, and resolved not to forget his herbology gloves next time - if there was going to be a next time. The wand light so close to his face was actually making it very difficult to see much of anything, but from what he could see, the floor wasn't actually all that far away. It seemed to be covered in something that almost looked like a pile of thick ropes until Harry caught something moving out of his eye.

The ropes were not ropes at all, but thick vines! And more alarmingly, the vines seemed to be moving rather fast for vines. Harry let himself slide a bit lower on the rope to get a closer look, and nearly dropped his wand in surprise when he felt a vine wrapping itself around his ankle. It was strong! He began to kick frantically to get it off, his arms straining to keep himself from being pulled off the rope. He used his second foot to kick at the vine, and block the other tendrils reaching for him from getting around him as well.

The rope he was hanging from gave a sudden jerk, snapping the vine around his ankle, and the loud growling from above reminded him that he was supposed to be humming. His voice wavered as he struck up another lullaby and pulled himself up the rope before Fluffy could even finish laying back down on the floor.

After he hauled himself up onto solid ground, he lay trembling on the floor while he waited for the flood of adrenaline to pass, humming shakily. Perhaps, he thought to himself, he had been a little hasty in his desire to explore. He wasn't sure what would have happened if Fluffy hadn't jerked the rope up, but he wasn't sure he would have been able to get the plant off. Nobody even knew where he was! He could have been stuck down there, waiting for the next time Fluffy was fed. Or worse, the plant could have done more than just grab him. Neville had told him enough about magical plants to know that it wouldn't be all that unusual for the plant to have a taste for wizard flesh.

When he felt that he had the energy, he sat up and mechanically untied the rope from Fluffy's collar and shut the trap door. It would be terrible if anyone noticed that he had been here! He'd be expelled for sure! He winced as he stood up, noticing that his ankle had been hurt worse than he thought when the rope was jerked.

He straightened his robes and headed straight to the hospital wing. There were enough trick steps that it surely wouldn't draw suspicion for a first year to have stumbled into one. Not nearly as suspicious as his hand had been, at any rate.

That night, he had nightmares of vines creeping after him as he tried to run. He ran as fast as he could, but it felt like he was moving through molasses, and the vines caught him and began to suffocate him. He woke up tangled in his sheets, gasping for air. It was far too early to be up, so he sorted out the blankets and lay in bed thinking. Should he continue to try to figure out what was beyond the trap door, or was the plant good enough protection that whatever it was would be safe? He certainly didn't want to go back down unless he was certain he knew how to deal with the plant. In the end, he decided that he'd try to figure out what the plant was before he decided whether or not to proceed.

* * *

Over the next few days, Harry found himself holed up in the library, largely avoiding his housemates. More than a few of them had made approving allusions to him burning down Hagrid's hut, though that approval was tempered with frustration at him getting caught and getting docked so many points. He was sick of telling them that it hadn't been him, but even with Goyle telling them about the dragon Hagrid had been keeping they didn't believe him.

Harry was just pulling down a large encyclopedia of magical plants when Neville rounded the corner.

"H-hey Harry," Neville said nervously.

Harry mentally berated himself for forgetting to wear his cloak, then took a furtive glance around to make sure they were alone. It seemed that the botany section of the library wasn't much used by most of his classmates though.

"Hey Neville," he replied, hoping that Neville wouldn't take as much offense to trying to keep their friendship a secret as Hermione had. Neville obviously noticed , but didn't say anything directly as he followed Harry to a set of chairs tucked in a corner.

"Wh-what are you l-looking at?" Neville asked instead, peering at the cover of the dusty book Harry was flipping through.

"I'm looking for a specific plant, but I don't know what it's called," Harry told him.

"Well, what are it's ch-characteristics?" Neville asked, eager to help.

"It's a kind of a vine, I think. It moves pretty fast, and can easily grab people who go too close," Harry replied, shuddering as he remembered how scared he'd been when it grabbed his ankle.

Neville looked thoughtful, and ran off to the shelves to grab some reference books for himself. Harry wasn't having much luck with his search strategy of flipping through the encyclopedia, but Neville seemed to know how to look up plants based on their description. Soon he had picked out a few plants that looked like they might be the right one. He showed Harry the bookmarked pages, which had beautiful illustrations, and Harry quickly identified the plant from the trap door as Devil's Snare.

It seemed that the plant, while extremely dangerous if a person was caught unawares or didn't know what it was, had a large weakness to light and fire. Harry huffed. Of course he needed the spell that he hadn't been having much luck with since he was currently avoiding Johanna and had to teach himself.

"Where did you h-hear about that p-plant anyways?" Neville asked him. Harry thought quickly.

"One of the older Slytherins was talking about how it grows in their dungeon," he lied to his friend. He felt bad about lying to Neville, but there was no way he was telling him that he had gone down a dangerous trap door the school had been told to avoid on pain of death!

The boys sat in silence for a bit as Harry re-read the paragraph on the plant to make sure he wasn't missing anything. After a few minutes, Neville began to fidget. Harry sighed.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Oh, it's n-nothing really…" Neville stuttered. Harry gave him a look he had been learning from watching his housemates that suggested exactly how little he believed him. Neville flushed.

"It's n-not really my b-business," he said, "b-but Hermione seems p-pretty upset with you. She thinks you picked your S-Slytherin friends over her."

Harry rubbed his forehead angrily. Why couldn't she understand that he just wanted to protect her, both from Dudley and the rest of his house? Neville quailed under his angry gaze, which made Harry feel even worse.

"I'm not picking my housemates over her," he tried to explain to Neville. "I can tell she's getting teased already, so I don't want to make it worse by making her into an even bigger target by hanging out with me."

"She's been wh-whispering with Ron in the corner of the c-common room," Neville told him.

"Why would she hang out with Weasley? I thought she was friends with you?" Harry asked, confused.

Neville grumbled something about them bonding over hating Snape or something, and Harry had the startling realization that he might not have been the only one she voiced her suspicions about Snape to. He grimaced. Of course it would be Weasley she told. He had, after all, heard Fluffy through the door and been in the forest when the creepy cloaked man had been drinking the unicorn blood.

Part of Harry didn't care. She was bossy, and he didn't like being nagged about helping Dudley with his homework. But another part of him really didn't want her to believe Dudley and Weasley when they tried to tell lies about him. For all her annoying features, she truly had seemed to care about him, and that was rare. _She_ had never insulted Hagrid, and he had to admit that while she and Johanna had their similarities, he didn't trust Johanna quite as much.

"I'll try talking to her again," he told Neville eventually.

"Does that mean you're d-done ignoring us?" Neville asked hopefully.

Harry winced again. "I can't promise that," he told Neville honestly. "I really do think it's better for you not to be seen with me."

"We can find somewhere you won't be seen with us then," Neville suggested, forgetting to stutter in his urgency to get his point across. "You're a Slytherin, right? Why can't we just be s-smart about it?"

Harry was momentarily stunned. Just because they used to hang out in the library, didn't mean they had to hang out anywhere they'd be seen. Why hadn't he thought of that? He had, after all, practiced in unused classrooms before. They would have to watch out for Peeves, of course, but since Dudley was largely ignoring him ever since Christmas it was unlikely he would try to find him.

"That's a really good point, Neville," he said slowly. "Maybe we can find a room to meet so we can do homework together again."

Neville's round face broke into a broad smile. "I w-would really like that. Are you d-done with the plants? Could w-w-we look for a room now?"

"Okay," Harry replied. He hadn't realized how much he missed his first friend in the wizarding world until they had made the plan to spend more time together. He was so happy that he decided to let Neville in on the secret of his cloak as they decided how to go about finding a suitable meeting place.

"Those are r-really rare!" Neville told Harry as he gently ran his fingers over the cloak's fabric.

"D'you want to give it a go?" Harry asked him, excited to explore again now that he had an accomplice.

"Really?" Neville asked with comically wide eyes.

A few minutes later, the two boys were hidden under the cloak, trying not to giggle as they crept out of the library. They wandered the halls, aiming to find somewhere good and dusty to show how unused it was. Eventually they found the perfect room. It was down a long hallway nobody seemed to go down, was full of all sorts of interesting cast-offs, and it even had desks in it so they could do their homework.

They spent a long time in their new hangout arranging it just so into a super cool fort.

"A magic fort needs a cool magic name," Harry decided.

"It's n-not really a magic fort," Neville said skeptically as he looked at the old curtain draped over the desks and chairs they had set up.

"It's in a magic castle! That's good enough for me," Harry said. "Besides, it's the first fort I've ever built," Harry confided in Neville.

"M-me too," Neville confided back. "Gran would n-never let me build one in case I hurt myself."

"How about Fort Magical Misfit?" Harry suggested.

"More like squib misfit," Neville replied, having fallen into a bit of a glum mood after thinking about his overbearing grandmother.

"You're not a squib," Harry told Neville honestly. "And if you're a squib, then so am I. I'm no better with a wand than you are."

"That's not true!" Neville disagreed.

"You don't see me in classes," Harry countered with a grimace. "I think my wand hates me."

"It's just a wand," Neville replied confused. "How can it hate you?"

"It's secondhand," Harry told him. "The man at the store said it wasn't a perfect fit, but would work okay until I could get my own wand. Apparently the wand chooses the wizard or something."

"Oh. My wand is secondhand too," Neville told Harry. "It used to belong to my father."

"Why didn't you get your own wand?" Harry asked him.

"Gran said my d-dad would be proud of me f-f-for using his w-wand. But I d-don't see how he'd be p-proud if I'm so bad at m-magic!"

Neville seemed to be on the brink of tears, and Harry had no idea what to do.

"My wand sometimes doesn't work, even when I'm pretty sure I'm doing the spell right. Maybe you're not bad at magic, and you just need a wand that works better for you," Harry suggested. Neville started to cry. Harry awkwardly patted him on the shoulder.

"I j-j-just want him to be p-p-proud of me!" Neville sobbed.

"I know how you feel," Harry said quietly. "I want my parents to be proud of me too. But I reckon they wouldn't get mad at me for being bad at magic because I didn't have the right wand. I'd like to think they'd still love me even if I _was_ a squib! Besides, I bet your parents would've been super proud with the way you took a punch for Hermione when Dudley was being awful!"

Neville perked up a bit at that, even though he hadn't felt very brave and hadn't been able to hit him back. The boys stayed in their new fort until they had their emotions back under control, and had promised each other that they wouldn't judge their magical abilities until they had a wand of their very own.

In the end, it was Neville who named the fort.

"Fortress Invisibility," he declared. "Because they won't see us coming."

"It's perfect," grinned Harry.

* * *

A/N: Surprise! The story's not dead yet! I've been having so much inspiration about what he'll be doing over the summer that I just had to write, despite looming deadlines... Thank you to those of you who are still around to read this, and as always, I hope to hear your thoughts on the chapter and story in general!


	19. Making Up With Friends

CHAPTER 19

"Can you believe it's June already?" Hermione moaned in the Gryffindor common room. "I don't know what I was thinking! I should have started studying for exams ages ago!"

Dudley groaned loudly. "Shut it, Granger," he said. "Nobody cares about your stupid studying."

"Fred and George said that first year exams are easy, so I reckon we've got nothing to worry about," Ron added.

Hermione bristled. "These exams are important! They set the trend for next year! Besides, if you don't do well on these exams, how will you be ready for second year? Classes are only going to get more difficult from here!"

"I don't care if I fail," Dudley said flippantly. "Just means I'll be done with you lot."

"You don't really mean that, do you?" Ron asked, obviously upset.

"I mean it!" Dudley insisted. "If I wasn't a wizard, I'd be at Smeltings, the school my dad went to! I bet I'd be having way more fun there!"

"You'd rather go to a muggle school than a magic school?" Ron asked.

"Yeah," Dudley scowled. "It's where I was supposed to go! I was never meant to be magical! But Harry had to come and ruin everything!"

"How does Harry have anything to do with you being magical?" Hermione asked.

"Mum says that if he hadn't been left at our door, we would've been a normal family! And normal means no magic!"

"I don't think that's how it works," Hermione told him.

"Oh yeah? You may be a know-it-all, but you don't know everything, Granger!" Dudley yelled. He stood up abruptly and stalked off to his dorm.

Dudley flopped into his bed and pulled the curtains tightly closed. He tried not to cry as he grabbed the letters from his parents, but it was just so hard when he missed them this much! He bet it wouldn't have been this bad at Smeltings. Sure, it was also a boarding school, but his dad had made it sound like it would have been so fun that he would hardly even notice he was away! At Hogwarts he spent every day counting down to when he could go home and pretend all this had never happened. He thought about his friends, like Piers. He had considered writing letters to keep in touch, using the same squib-run post-office to forward his letters as his mum used, but he didn't know what he would say. Moaning about how much he missed home was too lame, even if that's how he felt.

Ron came up to the dorm a while later.

"Hey mate," he said as Dudley glared out at him from his bed. "Want a sugar quill?"

Dudley sighed, then took Ron's peace offering. Sugar quills were one of the only safe wizarding sweets, and he did feel a little bad for yelling at Ron. It probably wasn't his fault he was stuck being magical, and he at least believed him about Harry for the most part.

"You _are_ my friend," he told Ron.

"I know," Ron said, although he didn't sound totally sure about it. "And I get how hard it would be growing up with the boy-who-lived. I mean, it was hard enough for me just having a bunch of older brothers, and they're not even famous!"

"I was supposed to be rid of him this year, y'know?" Dudley said as he sucked on the sugar quill.

"At least you're not in the same house!" Ron said. "I've got perfect Percy the prefect breathing down my neck all the time!"

Dudley shuddered. He couldn't imagine how much worse it would be if Harry hadn't been sent to Slytherin. At least the hat could see his cousin was evil, even if the rest of the world couldn't!

"I just wanna hit things sometimes!" he told Ron.

Ron thought about that for a minute. "The twins are beaters on the quidditch team, and they get to whack at the bludgers. Maybe that'd make you feel better?"

"I'm not getting on a broom," Dudley replied. It was unnatural, and he planned on keeping his feet firmly on the ground. Ron didn't get it. He'd grown up thinking this was normal - that brooms were supposed to fly and that chocolate frogs were supposed to hop.

Still, Ron seemed to have the thought in his head that Dudley would feel better if he got to whack around some bludgers, so when Dudley was ready to leave the dorm, he found himself being dragged to the twins.

"Ickle Ronnikins!" they exclaimed as the younger boys walked up to him. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your acquaintance?"

"Dud's feeling a bit off, and I thought maybe you could show him how to hit bludgers," Ron said boldly.

"Little Duddikins thinks he's got the arm for bludger bashing?" said one.

"Don't call me that!" Dudley snapped.

"Got some fire to him, doesn't he, George?" said the twin that was presumably Fred. They got up and began to walk around Dudley.

"He's got the attitude"

"And the build of the Slytherin beaters"

"Couldn't hurt," said George.

"I'm a little bored anyways," said Fred.

"We'll do it," George told Ron as he shot Fred a look.

"But what's in it for us?" they chorused.

Dudley didn't even know if he wanted to hit a bludger, let alone badly enough to give Ron's annoying older brothers anything. Ron seemed set on it though, and ended up agreeing to be the test subject of the twins' prank ideas for a whole week! Dudley was surprised. He didn't think Ron cared about him that much!

Later that afternoon, Dudley found himself sneaking off with Ron and the twins to give bludger whacking a go. It wasn't expressly forbidden for first years to practice for quidditch, but it was frowned upon. Fred and George grabbed a box and showed him the gray balls that were straining against their restraints inside.

"These ones are bludgers," George told him. "Nasty balls -"

"- That'll bang you up bad if you get hit -"

"- or even knock you off your broom!"

Dudley resolutely looked at only one twin, even though they were doing the annoying thing where they swapped off in the middle of the sentence. He noticed that Ron was also scowling at them. He couldn't imagine living with those two!

Still, they couldn't be all bad, he thought as they handed him a heavy bat. He gave it a couple test swings and let his face break into a smile. It was no Smeltings stick, but it would do in a pinch.

"I'm gonna practice flying," Ron said, and grabbed George's broom before he could stop him.

"I'll get you for this!" George roared as he waved his own beater bat in the air, but even Dudley could tell he wasn't serious, and Ron just stuck out his tongue before flying off. Meanwhile, Fred was making sure Dudley was ready. He was oddly serious as he told the younger boy to tell them as soon as he wanted to stop.

When Dudley said he was ready, Fred released the ball. It shot off into the air, then came right back down at them. Dudley gripped the bat tightly and imagined that the bludger was Harry's head.

 _CRACK_! He hit the bludger on his first try and sent it soaring away! He winced a bit at the sting in his hands from the force he'd used on the bludger, but grinned as it came hurtling back. He let all of his anger out on the ball, and smirked as Fred and George joked that they might have some competition in the coming quidditch years, if only he changed his mind about flying.

"Thanks mate, that was exactly what I needed," he told Ron when they were heading back up to Gryffindor tower.

"No problem," Ron replied, the tips of his ears going pink. "What're friends for?"

* * *

Harry was nervous. He was waiting in Fort Invisibility for Neville to join him with Hermione. He'd promised to apologize, and he could only hope that she'd come around once he'd explained himself. He considered working on his and Dudley's homework while he waited, but knew that it would only set Hermione off more if she knew he was still doing his cousin's homework. Instead, he tried working on the incendio charm.

When Neville and Hermione showed up a while later, he was getting frustrated. Sometimes it would mostly work, and small flames would rush out of the tip of his wand, but sometimes all he would get were sparks.

"Hey H-Harry," Neville greeted him shyly.

"Harry," Hermione said coolly.

"Hey Nev, Hermione," Harry replied as he smothered the sparks smouldering on the desktop. There was an awkward silence for a few moments while Harry tried to find the right words.

"I wanted to apologize to you," he said finally. Hermione sniffed. "It should be your choice whether you want to hang out with me or not, and I tried to make the choice for you when I was worried the other Slytherins would hurt you. I'm sorry."

"You really still want to be friends with me?" Hermione asked suspiciously.

"Yeah, I do," he told her.

"Even though I'm an obnoxious know-it-all?" she said.

"Yeah, even so," he grinned at her. "You're more than just an obnoxious know-it-all anyways. You've been really nice and helpful, even though most other people seem to hate me for one reason or another."

"You've r-really helped me this year!" Neville cut in. "I don't know how I'd p-pass the exams without your help!"

Hermione blushed. "Well I _do_ believe it's important to do well on our exams!"

Neville shot her an amused smile. "I know, and since we _only_ have one month left t-to study, why don't we have a study session n-now?"

Hermione glared at him in mock anger, but immediately agreed to help. Neville and Harry showed her the fort they'd made, and although she frowned at how dark it was (they could strain their eyes!) she agreed that it was a pretty cool place to study. In fact, she even had a solution to the darkness. She showed them a spell she knew to make bluebell flames, and said that they could fill some jars with it next time they came.

Harry was immediately excited about them, since they seemed more versatile than the flames from incendio. Hermione happily agreed to teach both flame spells to him and praised him for wanting to learn more than was on the curriculum. With Hermione as his teacher, Harry worked the kinks out of his incendio casting in no time (apparently he wasn't paying as much attention to the pronunciation of the spell as he should have been), and learned how to make the bluebell flames as well.

Even Neville picked up spells quickly enough when he was relaxed and stopped blaming himself so much. He told Harry that he'd mentioned the wand issue to his gran in his most recent letter home, and was hoping to hear from her soon. He was nervous about how she would respond to him not wanting to use his dad's old wand anymore, but slyly told Harry that he had mentioned being worried about breaking the wand thanks to his clumsiness. He figured that might convince her, even if nothing else did. Hermione was terribly intrigued about how learning on a wand that wasn't a great fit would impact them later, and made both boys promise to let her ask as many questions as they wanted when they got their new wands.

In the common room that evening, Harry was in a really good mood. He even forgave Johanna for her comments about Hagrid, and felt a bit guilty when he saw how relieved she was that he was talking to her again. If he'd learned anything from Hermione it was that you shouldn't give up on someone just because they said something that they don't mean.

Over the next few days, Harry took care to spend time with Johanna in the common room and his Gryffindor friends in their secret fort. It wasn't long before he felt that Fluffy probably needed a visit as well. He was a little nervous that the giant dog would be upset about being used as a rope holder, so he made sure to come prepared with some fresh sausage.

Fluffy, as it turned out, was indeed grumpy about Harry going through the trap door, but seemed to forgive him easily enough when bribed with sausage. He growled a little bit when Harry tied the rope to his collars again, but even tolerated that when Harry pulled some more sausage bribes out of his backpack.

"Okay, I can do this," Harry muttered to himself as he looked down into the darkness for a second time. This time he wasn't going in blind! He had a bunch of jars beside him, and he set about filling them all with the handy bluebell flames Hermione had shown him.

"Wingardium leviosa," he muttered, and carefully levitated them down to the floor of the trap door one by one, making a ring around where the rope was hanging. It seemed to be doing the trick, as the plant was cringing away from the brightness towards the side of the room.

Humming loudly, he pulled on his herbology gloves, lit his wand, and climbed down the rope. The plant seemed to consider reaching for him, but thought better of it as he landed safely within his ring of bluebell flame jars. He pulled a final jar of flames from his backpack and looked around. There was passageway out of the room! Would he be safe with just one jar of flames? It didn't look there was much of the plant in his way, so he decided to risk it.

He was nearly out of the room when he felt something brush his leg. It was the plant! He put his jar of flames right up against it and breathed a sigh of relief as it slowly unwound itself from his ankle. He cautiously walked down the passageway, alert for signs of anymore plants that might ensnare him. There was nothing, though, except for a faint rustling and clinking noise coming from farther in.

At the end of the passageway, the noises made sense. In a brilliantly lit room with a tall, arching ceiling there were hundreds of birds flying around! Harry put his invisibility coat back on, just in case they wanted to attack, and crept along the side of the room to the sturdy door at the other side. The birds made no move to attack him, but the good news stopped there because the door was locked. Even his Alohomora charm wasn't enough to get through.

Puzzled, he looked around the room. The tiny birds fluttering around were quite pretty, but it wasn't until he saw the brooms laying in the corner that he began to suspect that the birds weren't just for show. He tucked away his invisibility cloak as he cursed his luck. He had never had a makeup flying lesson, so he didn't know how to ride a broom! He held his hand over one and commanded 'Up'. Just like before, it flew quickly up into his hand. He swung his leg over it and did his best to remember how he was supposed to hold his hands before gently kicking off.

His heart pounded wildly as he rose into the air. He half expected to fall off at any moment, or for the birds to begin to attack, but nothing happened. In fact, flying felt remarkably natural! He leaned forward a bit and grinned as the broom obeyed his command and moved forward. He was flying! It was amazing! He felt so free as he swooped around the birds.

Only now that he was closer, they didn't look so much like birds at all. In fact, they seemed rather metallic and skinny. He flew closer to one with bright purple wings and suddenly realized that they weren't birds at all, but keys with wings! It must be a test! You had to find the right key to fit the lock to get through the door.

He supposed he'd have to take a better look at the lock to hopefully get a clue about which key was correct. There were so many! But he was having so much fun on the broom that he decided it could wait a few minutes while he flew around the room, faster and faster as he got more comfortable. Soon he thought he'd give catching a key a go. It was difficult - the keys moved very fast - but now that he was used to flying, he thought he'd be able to do it. The flying keys were fast, but he was faster, and if he timed it just right, he could grab them out of the air as he flew by. He bent the wings of the first few he caught, but he got better and better as he practiced more. The real problem was going to be catching the right one. There were so many keys!

He flew back down to the door at took a good look at the lock. It was old-fashioned, so it would likely be one of the older looking keys. The handle on the door was silver, so he hoped that the key would match. He re-mounted his broom and flew around, paying close attention to the keys. Any that he thought might fit were caught and shoved into the door, and after a dozen or so attempts he managed to find the right one! He studied the key carefully: it had bright blue wings like those huge blue butterflies from the Amazon he had seen on a field trip to the museum with his primary school. They key itself was silver, and had a distinct enough shape that he hoped he would be able to find it again if need be.

He slowly turned the key and peered through the door. He felt his heart sink as he saw what lay before him: a massive chess set with imposing, faceless pieces blocked the way, and he knew he was rubbish at chess. He closed the door and re-locked it, then let the struggling key out of his hand.

As he trudged back along the passageway to the plant room he thought about what he could do next. Blaise would probably help him improve at chess, but he knew it would take much longer than he had to get good enough that he'd be willing to attempt playing such a high-stakes game. The jars of flames were where he had left them, as was the rope, so in no time he was back in Fluffy's room, packing up his various ropes and jars.

In the common room, he happily accepted a game of chess with Blaise and tried to ignore how Malfoy glared daggers at him the whole time. He couldn't give up at this point! He'd gotten so far as a first year that it was clear that the protections he'd encountered so far were not sufficient to stop a fully trained wizard. Surely whoever was working for Voldemort, for that was obviously who Firenze had warned him about in the forest, would be clever enough to get through them. In fact, what was stopping them from going in right now? There was so much Harry didn't understand.

A/N: I was going to post this yesterday, but it seems like the site was down. How inconvenient. Anways, I wanted to let you know that I have another fully finished and one half-finished chapter left to get to the end of Harry's first year! I'm very sorry for the huge delay between when I started and now, but I seem to be inspired to write again. I also wanted to thank Noradin for pointing out a mistake I made in chapter 3. I don't have a beta, and although I try to take a good look at the chapter right before I publish it, mistakes are bound to sneak through. I hope they aren't too distracting, but for now I'm going to leave the previous chapters as is and focus on getting back to a regular publishing schedule!


	20. Chess and Other Obstacles

CHAPTER 20

"I wish I knew what the dog on the third floor was hiding," Hermione casually mentioned during one of her study sessions with Neville and Harry.

"Why?" Harry wondered.

"It's got to be something important!" Hermione said. "And guess what Ron told me last night."

"What?"

"He forgot to hand in his defence homework and had to go back after class to hand it in, and he said he heard Professor Quirrel talking to someone like he was being threatened!" she told Harry.

"Quirrel's scared of his own shadow, Hermione," Harry reminded her.

"He's worse at m-magic than I am!" Neville chuckled, "and I b-bet he doesn't have our excuse of a h-hand-me-down wand!"

"I wasn't finished," Hermione said snippily. "He's our defense against the dark arts professor! That means that whoever's working for Voldemort would likely target him! It all makes sense!"

"You're not going after Snape again, are you?" Harry groaned. He knew that the greasy professor fed Fluffy regularly, hence the bite on the leg, and the rope Hermione had seen him with had actually been Harry's.

"She's got a p-point," Neville said. "After all, you've seen how P-Professor Snape always glares at him!"

"He glares at everyone! I bet he glares more at me than Quirrel," Harry exclaimed.

But Hermione wouldn't give it up. She dropped the subject when Harry asked for help with a charms essay, but the look on her face made it clear that the conversation wasn't closed. By the end of their study session, Harry was frustrated. He scarfed down dinner and snuck under his cloak to the forbidden corridor. Fluffy made him calmer. The thought made him giggle - Harry never would have expected to befriend a giant three-headed dog, especially after nearly getting eaten the first time they met!

He made sure to keep the cloak close at hand, in case it was a feeding day for Fluffy, but his snuggle session with the giant dog went uninterrupted. In fact, he calmed down so much that he drifted off to sleep for a little while. He cursed under his breath as he woke up, and scurried back to the common room.

Luckily, it seemed that he hadn't missed curfew, as the common room was still full of students. He decided against taking the cloak off as he snuck through to his room. He didn't feel like talking to anyone. As he was walking through, he found himself beside Malfoy and the urge to prank him was too strong to ignore. He stood far enough away that Malfoy wouldn't knock into him if he stood up quickly from his chair, then poked the king of his chessboard over.

"Who did that!" Malfoy yelled, his eyes looking right through Harry.

"I bet your king knew when he was defeated," Blaise smirked, for he had been playing Malfoy at the time. That got Malfoy off on a tirade of how he was a Malfoy and never lost. His chess pieces joined in the conversation to assure Malfoy that he had indeed been winning, and pointed out all of the mistakes Blaise had made leaving him open for attacks.

Harry suddenly remembered how Blaise had complained that Malfoy only trained the black side of the board. How good were they? Would they be enough to guarantee him a win against the giant chessboard beyond Fluffy? They did seem to know what they were talking about, and conveniently they were the right side! All he had to do was "borrow" the set from Malfoy. If he took it while Malfoy was asleep, he likely wouldn't even notice it missing! He decided to give it a go that weekend.

* * *

The rest of the week wasn't very good. Hermione was a bit of a wreck with end of term exams looming, and she was making Neville more and more nervous in turn. Besides that, Dudley seemed to be feeling better, which meant he was back to tormenting his cousin any chance he got.

Friday was a particularly difficult day. Snape was even more unpleasant than normal, and it was only the fact that Harry paired with Blaise now that Neville and Hermione worked together that saved his potion from utter failure. He decided that he would try out Malfoy's chess set that evening and then he could sleep in on Saturday.

That night, he lay in his bed, practically vibrating with anticipation. Malfoy seemed to take forever to get ready for bed that night, and it took even longer for his breathing to even out. Finally, _finally_ , Harry was pretty sure he was asleep. He pulled his cloak on before he even got out of his bed and tiptoed over to Malfoy's trunk. His chess set wasn't even put away, but sitting on the top. Harry couldn't believe his luck! He grabbed his backpack, shoes, and the chess set and crept out of the dorm and the common room.

Out in the halls, he took a moment to put on his worn sneakers and shoved the chess set into his backpack. He applied the charms to hide his steps and mask his scent from Mrs. Norris, then made his way as quickly but carefully as he could up to Fluffy's room. He didn't run into any trouble along the way, and had soon made his way down the trapdoor and to the chess room.

Malfoy's chess pieces complained as he set them up and they realized that Malfoy wasn't there. But once he explained that they were in a game that would test their skill much more than Blaise could, they perked up.

Harry found out that he would have to choose a piece to play as, so decided to be the king. After all, it was the only indispensable piece in the game, and if he found himself in danger of being taken he probably had a lot more to worry about.

As soon as he tapped the black king and took his place the game began. One of the white pawns moved two spaces forward, so he mirrored the move on Malfoy's chess set. The black pieces gave him advice, but he found that having so many of them talking made it more difficult to follow their advice than expected! Still, he did his best.

The first time one of the pieces was taken, Harry realized just how much danger he was in. He likely wouldn't survive a hit from the opposition! So, he steeled his resolve and played on. Later in the game, it became obvious that the black pieces on Malfoy's board were very useful in helping him avoid traps that they had set up before, and he avoided many mistakes that could have cost him the game.

It was a close call, but in the end Harry managed to get the white king in checkmate. He heaved a sigh of relief and packed up the chess set. He pulled on his invisibility cloak and went to the door on the far side. The grunting and shuffling noises coming through the door made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Where had he heard sounds like that before? He re-applied all of his stealthy spells and opened the door a crack.

He was immediately hit by the smell. It was possibly the worst thing Harry had ever smelled before, and he had to use all of his mental strength to avoid gagging and coughing. He took a deep breath of the cleaner air from the chess room and took a look through the door. There was a troll! It was pacing around the far side of the room, grunting with each step.

Harry liked to think that he wasn't suicidal. His previous run-in with a troll had not inspired confidence in his ability to defeat or even outrun one. He took a step back from the door and thought furiously. Was it worth it? It was dangerous, but he had a feeling that something terrible would happen if Voldemort was able to get whatever it was Dumbledore was hiding from him. Then he had a thought. Maybe he couldn't outrun a troll on his own legs, but he was fast on a broom!

Mentally patting himself on the back, he went back to the room with the flying keys and grabbed a broom. He arranged the cloak to cover the entire broom while he was riding it and slowly inched the door open, praying that it wouldn't creak. His good luck held out, and he opened the door enough to squeeze through without the troll noticing. He slowly flew across the room, staying as far as he could from the troll. It looked around stupidly when the door at the far side creaked a bit, and sniffed suspiciously, but in the end Harry made it through without it coming for him.

The next room didn't seem to have anything too scary in it - in fact, it was just a table with a bunch of bottles lined up on it. The concerning thing was that as soon as he stepped through the doorway, purple flames sprung up behind him. He was trapped! And the doorway forward also had flames, but they were black and even more sinister.

Harry gulped as he walked forwards. Whatever this was, he had to figure it out or he was trapped here! There was a roll of paper on the table, so he forced himself to move forward and unroll it. When he read it, his heart sank. It was some kind of riddle. If he guessed wrong, he would be poisoned, or burned to death when he tried to go through the door after drinking the wrong potion.

Stifling the urge to cry, he pulled a quill and parchment out of his backpack and drew a diagram of the table. Perhaps, if he very carefully wrote each clue with the bottles it was referring to he could figure it out. He wished he had Hermione with him. She often complained about how wizards lacked logic and he bet she would have the problem solved in no time! But Hermione wasn't here. He had come down all by himself and had to figure it out or be stuck. So he carefully drew all of the bottles and began to label them.

He soon had a couple bottles that were definitely not poison, but he was getting caught up with how many clues there were to sort out. He set down his quill and did his best not to panic - that would do him no good! He grabbed the broom and flew a few quick laps around the room to clear his mind. He idly wondered whether he could get up enough speed to get through the fire without dying immediately, but when he felt how warm the flames were, he decided that he didn't like his odds.

Back at the parchment, he continued teasing out the riddle. The flying had done him good, and at last he was reasonably sure that he knew the identities of the potions in the bottle. The smallest one held the way forward - he was 90% sure. He reminded himself that the sorting hat had wanted to put him in Gryffindor and gulped down half the contents of the bottle. He left the broom and his backpack in the room with the potions and stepped forward before the icy feeling from the potion went away.

He was sure he was going to burn as he stepped through the black flames, but it seemed that he had indeed picked the correct bottle and he got through unharmed. He gasped when he saw what was in the room. The mirror of Erised! He could see his family again! But what was it doing here? Did Dumbledore mean for Voldemort to get stuck looking into the mirror for eternity? Surely that wasn't all there was!

He forced himself to take a good look around the rest of the room before he went to the mirror, but there truly didn't seem to be anything else. Curious, he stood in front of the mirror. How did this have to do with what Voldemort wanted? And how could he make sure Voldemort never got his hands on it?

Harry frowned when his family didn't immediately appear. Instead, it was just him holding a reddish stone. Was Voldemort after a stone? Obviously it would be magical, but what would it do? He wanted to have it so he could figure out what it was. Mirror Harry seemed to understand, and smirked as it stuck the stone into its pocket. Harry gasped - there was something in his pocket! He pulled it out and it was the stone from the mirror! Had he accidentally gotten what Voldemort was looking for? Mirror Harry put a finger over his lips, then smiled as his family came to join him.

He was going to be in so much trouble if anyone found out! He bet they wouldn't care that he hadn't actually wanted the stone to use it himself… they would think he really was a dark wizard working for Voldemort! Well, he couldn't just leave the stone here now that it wasn't protected by the mirror, could he? No, best to hold on to it and figure out what to do later.

He turned to go back but paused. It wouldn't hurt to stay for a little bit, would it? He had missed his family after all, and this was probably the last time he'd see them. But Dumbledore's words came back to him. He didn't want to waste away in front of the mirror! It would be rather awkward if Dumbledore came to check on the stone and found Harry staring at the mirror, so he reluctantly turned away, gulped down the second half of the potion and left the room.

He was so caught up in wondering what the stone was that he almost didn't set the room with the bottles exactly as he'd found it. He put the bottle with the potion allowing free passageway through the black flames back in line with the rest and grabbed his backpack and the broom. Wouldn't it be funny if Voldemort tried to steal the stone, but couldn't get through the flames now that Harry had drank all the potion! But he could laugh about that later. At the present time, he grabbed the potion he believed to be the one that would allow him back through the purple flames. It gave him the same icy feeling, so he took that as a good sign and flew through the flames.

It was easy to backtrack now that he'd gone through all the way once. The troll still paid him no mind, and he easily flew over the chess set that seemed to have reset itself since he had played. Perhaps he could have flown over it on the way in! Impassible protections indeed…

He studied the stone in more detail once he was back in bed with Malfoy's chess set safely back on the blonde git's trunk. It didn't look like anything remarkable, but Harry knew enough about magic to know not to judge something by how it looked.

The more he thought about it, the more anxious he got. He hadn't meant to take the stone! What if Dumbledore knew he had it? What if Voldemort knew! His breaths became quick and shaky. What could he do? He couldn't get it back into the mirror even if he tried now that it was just showing him his family again! He couldn't tell Dumbledore because he'd be expelled for going down the forbidden corridor. The best he could do was stuff the stone into an old sock, hide it in the bottom of his trunk, and continue on like nothing had happened.

* * *

The next morning Harry was a wreck. He woke up late after a night of fitful dreams and noticed that he had missed breakfast. After lunch, he nearly had a heart attack when Malfoy pulled out his chess set and it informed him that it had been stolen and used to beat a giant chess set. How had he forgot that the pieces would tell on him to their true master! Conveniently, the pieces didn't recognize human faces very well, so it couldn't say who had stolen it, aside from that it wasn't someone who had regularly used the set. Malfoy seemed more concerned that the set was malfunctioning than that someone had stolen it. After all, the story was far too fanciful to be taken seriously, and surely nobody would dare steal from a Malfoy!

"What is wrong with you?" Johanna snapped at him as he accidentally set fire to the essay she was helping him with. "You look horrid. I know exams are coming, but they shouldn't be _that_ stressful! Go take a nap!"

"Sorry," Harry muttered. "Maybe a nap would be good." He made a show of going up to his room, but knew that he wouldn't be able to sleep. Instead, he grabbed his cloak and decided to sneak out and take a walk to clear his mind. When he got back to the common room he was surprised to see Johanna deep in conversation with an older student. The Harry of a few months ago would have left well enough alone, but the current Harry was tired and trusted his friend just a little less. He snuck up behind them and what he heard made his blood boil.

"You've got to stop snapping at him!" the older Slytherin was saying.

"He's hopeless though," Johanna whined. "It's exhausting trying to help him when he's clearly not paying any attention!"

"That doesn't matter," the other boy said. "He has to trust you! Need I remind you the consequences of failing..."

All of the fight went out of Johanna. "Of course, sir, I'll do better."

Johanna was only friends with him because the older Slytherins were bullying her into it? How dare she trick him like that! He almost ripped his cloak off and hexed her right on the spot, but that would have ended badly seeing as he seemed to be surrounded by snakes who were only pretending not to hate him. What had happened over Christmas to change their attitudes? He almost preferred how they had openly hated him before. At least then he knew who his enemies were! Malfoy's consistency was almost a relief - the blonde ponce may hate him, but at least Harry knew he wasn't faking it.

Harry numbly made his way to Fort Invisibility. He crept into the darkness of the fort and stared into the mesmerizing blue flames. His mind went blessedly blank as he focused on the flickering of the flames.

Hermione and Neville found him there. Harry had no idea how long he had been blanking out looking into the flames, but Neville's tentative voice broke him out of his stupor.

"H-Harry… Are you okay?"

Harry shook his head no. He was not even remotely close to okay. Neville sat beside him, and beckoned Hermione over to sit on his other side. It was comforting to be surrounded by people who had never hated him and never pretended to like him, and soon enough he was willing to speak. He told them all about how he had gone from being hated to being tolerated over Christmas break. Neville was a great listener and he even kept Hermione from making comments that would likely not have helped matters.

"What are you g-going to do now?" Neville asked when the whole story had been related.

"I dunno," Harry replied. "Right now I just never want to see any of them ever again. And maybe hex them to oblivion..."

Hermione gave him a disapproving look.

"I'm not actually going to!" he said.

"Still, c-can't you just imagine Malfoy getting his arse handed to him! It would be g-glorious!" Neville said dreamily.

"Language!" Hermione reprimanded, but she was fighting a smile.

"But seriously, if you're so worried about them being awful to you again, you shouldn't provoke them," Hermione continued.

"You're right," Harry sighed.

"Yeah, what better way to d-deal with the snakes than by b-beating them at their own game!" Neville added.

Talking to Neville and Hermione made him feel better, but he still fantasized about getting his new wand and bursting into the common room, spells blazing out like those cowboys in the films uncle Vernon let Dudley watch when aunt Petunia wasn't home.

After their study session, the feeling of dread returned full-force, and not just because he was going back to the common room full of people who were only pretending to like him. It felt like something was wrong; the castle had a feeling of restless anticipation to it. He wondered whether he was just paranoid, but imagined that he could see that Quirrel and Snape were getting antsy as well. Still, he tried to ignore it. There were only two weeks until final exams, and then this would surely all be over.


	21. Gryffindor Joins the Adventure

CHAPTER 21

Time has a funny way of speeding up or slowing down based on your mental state. Dudley could see time hurtling along for the rest of the first year students who were frantically preparing for exams. Even Ron had succumbed to its effects as he rapidly paged through his messy defense notes to try and figure out what they had actually learned in that course. He had gotten it into his head that he was going to fail all of his exams and be the most disappointing of all his siblings, which had caused him to become incredibly boring. He had blown off Dudley multiple times over the past week in favour of begging Granger to help him.

Time had not sped up for Dudley. In fact, it had slowed down to a crawl as Dudley anticipated the upcoming summer break. In mere weeks he would be home! No more wands and magic, no more freakishness, and no more stairs! His parents had promised to buy him a new gameboy and a bunch of new games, plus a bunch of other presents. He grinned at the thought, then remembered that he still had exams and slumped over his charms work.

Admittedly, some of the stuff you could do with magic was pretty cool. He liked stinging charms a lot, especially when they were directed at his cousin or Malfoy. But some stuff was totally useless! He was never going to want to levitate a feather or turn a match into a needle in his life, and he just didn't see the point of learning how. Regardless, he figured that if he could do the cool spells, that'd be enough to pass. Plus, he'd tell everyone that he got test anxiety like his mum said he had, and get by on the marks for the homework Harry had written for him. It had worked before, so there was no reason to expect anything different here.

Speaking of his cousin, Harry had been acting really suspiciously recently. He was jumpy and looked like he was hardly sleeping, and he'd overheard Neville and Hermione talking about how they were worried about him. Ron had heard too, and said they'd have to watch out in case he was plotting anything. Ron seemed to think that Harry had something to do with the cloaked man in the forest, since he was the boy-who-lived and all. Dudley said that Harry was probably in league with you-know-who, but even he didn't believe that. The terrorist had killed his cousin's parents, after all, and that wasn't something people easily forgave. Still, he did have that (probably cursed) scar, so who knew what was up with his brain. His recent breakdown could be him going completely barmy! He and Ron had decided to keep a close eye on Harry regardless, just in case.

Finally it was time for exams. There were written and practical portions, and Dudley made a big show of his test anxiety in front of the teachers for both. Harry looked like he was going to pass out. He kept rubbing at his forehead and wincing all through the written portion, and looked decidedly ill after his practicals. Even more odd than his cousin was Granger; she and Ron had almost been late for the final exam, and looked practically frantic! As soon as the test was over, Ron grabbed Hermione and dragged her over to Dudley.

"You're never going to believe what we heard!" he whispered loudly. Dudley did his best to look interested. "Hermione was helping me with some last minute revisions, so when she wanted to go to Quirrel -"

"Professor Quirrel," Hermione cut in.

"Fine, _Professor_ Quirrel! When she dragged me to his office we heard him talking, so we thought we'd wait our turn. Anyways, we accidentally heard some of what he was saying -"

"We didn't mean to eavesdrop," Hermione cut Ron off again.

"Right, we overheard. It's different," Ron said.

"Stop interrupting and let Ron finish," Dudley grouched.

"Sorry," said Hermione and let Ron continue.

"Something's happening tonight. Something important! And Hermione reckons it's got to do with whatever's on the third floor!"

"We went and told Professor McGonagall right away of course," Hermione said. Dudley rolled his eyes. Of course that's where the know-it-all would go first. "But she told us it was none of our business and that everything was under control."

"Okay… Sounds like everything's fine to me then," Dudley said, eager to get away from Granger.

"You missed the worst part!" Ron said.

"Oh! Right! _Dumbledore's gone_ ," Hermione said. She saw the blank look on Dudley's face and groaned. "You explain, Ron," she snapped at the redhead.

"Dumbledore's the only one you-know-who ever feared," Ron explained. "And I - we - reckon that if you-know-who's involved and Dumbledore's gone, maybe something really is happening tonight!"

Dudley still wasn't impressed. Even if there was some plot, why would they involve themselves in it? Dumbledore had made it very clear that anyone who went to the forbidden corridor would risk dying a painful death, and given the thunderous growling he'd heard from behind the door, it seemed like it wasn't an idle threat. He told them so.

"He's got a point," Ron said, but then he brightened. "But we know someone who knows a lot about magical animals!"

"We do?" said Hermione.

"Yeah! Hagrid!"

Hermione didn't seem convinced. "The groundskeeper?" she asked as Dudley vehemently said "No!"

Ron shot Dudley a sympathetic look, knowing that Dudley had full reason to be very wary of the man, but he didn't back down. He explained to the others that Hagrid had asked him about the dragon reserve his brother worked at and had demonstrated his love of magical animals during the conversation. Hermione insisted they go talk to him right away.

"I'm telling you," Dudley tried to convince them, "that - that _man_ is a menace! He came for Harry in the middle of the day in front of all the people on our street. He said he was taking Harry for his school stuff, but mum and dad had already taken both of us. Then when dad told him so, he got mad and pointed his umbrella at him and my dad grew a _pig tail_! He had to get it cut off at the hospital! There's no way I'm going anywhere near him! He should be locked up!"

"It's illegal to do magic on muggles," Hermione said, looking shocked.

"You don't need to come, Dud," Ron reassured him. "We'll go talk to him and then come find you after."

"Fine, well don't blame me if you come back with a tail," Dudley replied and stalked off. He headed up to the common room and was pleased to find it mostly empty. He could see students milling around outside enjoying their freedom, but he had no interest in joining them. Instead he moped in the common room with a pack of jelly babies and daydreamed about finally being home.

Ron and Hermione came bursting into the common room a while later, arguing loudly. They stopped immediately when they saw Dudley, and Dudley scowled as they tried to draw him in.

"The dog on the third floor is Hagrid's!" Ron told him triumphantly.

"He named it _Fluffy_ ," Hermione added.

"Of course he did," Dudley scowled. "He's mental, he is!"

"Oh, and guess who else was visiting him today," Ron said. Dudley shrugged. He didn't care. "Potter was there," Ron told him. Dudley changed his mind. He _did_ care about that! What was his no-good cousin plotting? He needed to tell his parents about this! He wondered if they could tell the local police to keep him away from the house, but dismissed the idea. If anything happened the aurors would just come and make everyone forget, like they had made Piers forget his birthday trip to the theme park. It wasn't fair! Wizards could get away with anything, and the normal, decent folk they messed with would never even know!

"Dud, you listening?" Ron asked. Dudley realized he had zoned out and did his best to focus back on his friend.

"Potter and Hagrid still refuse to believe that it's professor Snape, but it couldn't be anyone else! Everyone suspects he was a death eater!" Ron explained.

"And he obviously doesn't like teaching," Hermione sniffed.

"None of that matters," Dudley insisted. "We still can't get past the dog, so we can't go!"

"But we _can_ get past Fluffy," Hermione said triumphantly.

"Right," Ron agreed. "Sorry mate, forgot to tell you the most important bit! Apparently music puts Fluffy right to sleep!"

"Music?" Dudley repeated. "You want to go sing a little song to a giant, vicious dog and hope you're right and he'll fall asleep instead of eating you? That's it, you've gone mental!"

Dudley gave up arguing with them and left the common room in a huff. He couldn't understand why Ron would want to risk his life to protect an unknown object from a terrorist that everyone thought was dead! Was it another of those weird wizard things? Did becoming a wizard automatically make you lose any common sense?

Ron's voice broke through the curtains around Dudley's bed. "Please, mate, this is important!"

Dudley resolutely remained silent, and folded his arms across his chest as Ron's bright orange hair poked through the curtain.

"I don't know how much you know about the war with you-know-who, but it was really bad. Lots of people died before Potter killed him; my mum lost both of her brothers! And if there's even a tiny chance that he's trying to come back… The adults don't believe us! It's up to us!"

"It's not fair for kids to have to deal with terrorists," Dudley insisted. "And my parents told me he's dead! There's no way he could be alive, right?"

"I dunno," Ron said, "Everyone was sure he was dead, but if there's any chance he isn't - and he's one of the worst dark wizards of all time, so if anyone could do it, it'd be him - we can't let him get what he wants. What if it's a weapon! Anything Dumbledore wants to keep away from him should never get into his hands, or into the hands of the Death Eaters."

Dudley could feel himself losing his resolve. Ron almost made it sound like they'd be heroes if they stopped Snape! And he'd one-up his cousin and prove that there's no way Harry had defeated you-know-who the first time! And if Harry wasn't important, there's no way Dumbledore would make him stay with them - Dudley would be the hero and he would get his way finally! Nobody would say no when he demanded Harry find somewhere else to live because he'd be exposed as a fraud!

"Fine," he told Ron. "I'm in. We better get an award if this works!"

Ron beamed at him. "I bet we'll get service awards to the school! None of my brothers have one of those! C'mon, let's go tell Hermione."

* * *

Hermione had something on her mind. She kept fidgeting and checking the time and it was driving Harry bonkers. She and Neville had come to Fort Invisibility to hang out after dinner now that they didn't have to study anymore. Harry had been looking forward to spending some time with his friends before he had to go home for the summer and couldn't talk to them, and Hermione was making his anxiousness and foreboding feeling way worse!

"Exams are done! What are you so nervous about," Harry finally snapped.

"I'm sure you did g-great, Hermione," Neville said earnestly.

"I'm not worried about my grades! I mean, of course I want to know how I did - I might have missed question 23 on the history exam - but… well… Can you boys promise to keep a secret?"

"Of course," Neville smiled. Harry agreed, but was beginning to feel very worried. He had been at Hagrid's when Ron and Hermione had come in going off about how Snape was going to steal the stone and he was very worried they were going to do something Gryffindorish. His concerns were realized as Hermione explained all of her suspicions to Neville and finally got around to what had her so nervous - she, Ron, and Dudley of all people were going to try to stop him.

"You c-can't, Hermione!" Neville told her. "You'll get is such t-t-trouble! And it sounds really dangerous!"

"Neville's right," Harry agreed. He tried to use a more tactical approach than his friend had though - Hermione did not like being told what she couldn't do! "Surely the professors have everything under control, and besides, Hagrid said there are loads of protections!"

"The professors don't believe us!" Hermione retorted. "And Snape's had plenty of time to figure out what the traps are and how to get past them!"

"But _you_ haven't!" Harry said frantically. He had gone in cautiously and still had some close calls, and Hermione wanted to go with no preparation!

"If you're so worried, then come with us! Together I'm sure we can figure everything out!"

"For me and Harry that would c-basically be suicide," Neville exclaimed. "We b-both have troubles getting our wands to do what we w-want! What if it d-didn't work at a crucial moment!"

"Nev's right," Harry said. "And even without our wand troubles, surely Dudley isn't the best wizard. He'll probably run at the first sign of trouble!"

"That's mean, Harry," Hermione said. "He's improved recently, and besides, he must have been sorted into Gryffindor for a reason!"

Neville and Harry continued trying to convince Hermione to see reason, but she seemed determined to ignore all arguments against her plan now that she had one, and eventually left the room in a huff after warning them not to tell anyone.

"We c-can't let her do this," Neville said after she had left.  
"I know," Harry replied. "I've had the feeling that something bad would happen for ages. This is probably it! We've got to stop them!"

They decided that Neville would wait up in the common room to try to stop them from going out, and Harry would sneak out with the cloak to head them off if they did manage to get past Neville. Hermione may never forgive them, but losing her as a friend was worth it if they saved her life!

* * *

That night in the Gryffindor common room, Ron, Hermione and Dudley waited anxiously for everyone to go to sleep so they could sneak out. Nobody seemed to pay them much attention, except for when Percy told them that they should sleep as he himself went up to bed. Ron assured his brother that they were just super excited that exams were done and weren't feeling sleepy yet. Percy gave his brother a benevolent smile and magnanimously told him that he wouldn't inform their mother, just this once.

Finally the common room had cleared out. The trio quickly went to their rooms to change into more sneaky clothing (Dudley had insisted that if they were going to sneak around, they had to dress like ninjas to do it properly - he'd even made Ron put a cap over his bright hair) then reconvened back in the common room.

"Ready?" Ron whispered.

"Yes," the other two confirmed.

"Then let's go," Ron said as he led the way to the portrait hole.

"Stop!" came a voice from behind them. Dudley whirled around and saw Neville glaring at them. When had Neville grown a backbone? He was supposed to be a wimp, like Harry!

"Neville! I told you not to do anything!"

"You told Neville? How could you be such a blabbermouth!" Ron said.

Neville moved to block the way out. "I'll - I'll fight you! You c-can't do this!"

"This is your fault," Dudley grouched at Hermione while Ron hissed at her to _do_ something.

"Oh Neville, I shouldn't have involved you! I'm so sorry," Hermione said. She pointed her wand at Neville and said "Petrificus Totalus". Neville's arms and legs snapped together, he teetered, and then fell face-first onto the floor. Dudley snickered. He'd have to learn that spell. Ron seemed to be worried about Neville, but Hermione assured him that it would wear off eventually. Dudley and Ron pulled the frozen boy behind a couch to make sure he wasn't found too quickly, and then they were off.

They cracked the common room door open and listened. They could hear the loud snores of the fat lady, so as quietly as they could, they crept off. They had a near run-in with Mrs. Norris as they neared the corridor, but luckily Ron thought quickly. He used the levitation charm to make the visor of a suit of armour clank in a corridor in the opposite direction, and the evil cat went rushing off to investigate!

Too soon, in Dudley's opinion, they reached the forbidden corridor. It was dusty and oppressing, and Dudley was quickly coming to the conclusion that glory and getting away from his cousin wasn't worth it. He was about to suggest that they turn around when they reached the door with the dog behind it and noticed a small figure ducked behind a suit of armor.

"Harry!" he hissed. He'd recognize that sneak anywhere! What was he doing here? Had Hermione blabbed to him as well? He and Ron glared at her - she had a very guilty expression.

"This is the worst idea ever!" Harry hissed at them. "It isn't too late to turn around!"

"Of course you'd say that! You're probably working with Snape!" Dudley accused his cousin.

"I don't want Voldemort to get his way," Harry insisted. "He killed my parents! I'd never have been stuck with your family without him! There's no way I'd EVER join him." The 'ever' had come out louder than Harry anticipated, and the four students looked at each other in fear as they heard shuffling footsteps in the distance and Filch's cry of "Who's there?".

Hermione unlocked the door and the students piled through. Dudley rolled his eyes. Harry may say he was against them going, but he sure lost his nerve when he thought they were going to get caught!

Inside the room was the largest dog Dudley had ever seen. It had three heads and it was growling at them menacingly, but didn't attack them right away. Some old-timey stringed instrument that Dudley thought could be a harp sat on the floor near them. Harry immediately began to hum a lullaby, and soon the dog had fallen fast asleep, its massive chest rising and falling as it snored loudly.

"What now?" Ron asked.

"Let's try to open the trapdoor," Hermione suggested. She, Ron, and Dudley heaved it open while Harry stood back, still humming and looking incredibly anxious.

"I can't see anything," Dudley complained.

"Me neither," said Ron. "And looks like there's no way down - we'll have to drop."

Hermione took a nervous step back. Ron and Dudley looked at each other.

"Well, down you go," said Dudley. There was no way he was going first!

"Alright," Ron said, then eased himself down so he was hanging off the side. "Here goes nothing," he said as he screwed his eyes shut and let himself fall. Dudley thought his heart might stop when he didn't hear Ron say anything right away. Surely he hadn't just splatted at the bottom! They would have heard something.

"It's alright!" Ron's voice floated up from the gloom. "There's a soft landing!"

"You next," Dudley commanded Hermione. She looked at him with big eyes but obeyed. Dudley grabbed his cousin next and forced him down the trapdoor with him. The dog woke up and began to growl again, but it was too late - they were already falling.

The falling seemed to take forever. Harry's hand was gripping his arm painfully tightly, and Dudley had to shove him away mid-air. He didn't want his bony cousin smushing him at the bottom! Eventually they landed in on something squishy. Harry immediately got up and sprang to the side of the room.

"What is that?" he asked them.

"Dunno, but good thing it was here to break our fall," Ron replied.

"Oh!" Hermione gasped as she struggled to get up. "It's wrapping around us!"

Dudley and Ron immediately began to struggle against the plant. Dudley only vaguely heard Hermione telling them to stop struggling - as if he'd let a stupid magic plant to get the best of him! She began yelling at Harry to make fire, because apparently the plant didn't like fire (and honestly, what plant did?). Dudley wanted to yell at Harry not to, but the plant had snaked its way around his mouth and eyes, and he was struggling just to breathe.

Suddenly the plant started to move away from Dudley. He gasped for breath and stumbled away from the plant that was now writhing in blue flames.

"Are you alright?" Harry asked them, his eyes wide and wand still pointing at the plant.

"I think so," Hermione said shakily as she looked everyone over.

"We ought to keep our wands out from now on," Ron said. "C'mon, let's keep going."

They walked down the dark corridor, wands at the ready. Dudley kept a close eye on Harry, who was hanging out in the back of the group and looked like he might bolt at any moment. He wasn't going to allow his cousin to get away with any funny business! He wasn't even supposed to be here! He'd probably try to stab them in the back the first chance he got - but not on Dudley's watch!

"Shh," Ron said and motioned at them to stop walking. "What's that noise?"

"It sounds like wings," Hermione said.

The sound wasn't very menacing, so they kept moving forward. The corridor opened up into a brightly lit room full of birds with wings of all colours. It reminded Dudley of the tropical birds from the zoo - pretty, but boring. Birds weren't nearly as cool as crocodiles and lions! Dudley took a seat as Hermione and Ron went over to the door on the far side. Even Hermione couldn't make the door open!

Hermione and Ron conferred a bit longer before rushing over to Dudley.

"They're keys! Look!" Ron told Dudley.

"We need to get the right one to open the door," Hermione said. "There are brooms in the corner."

Dudley looked up at the keys incredulously. How on earth would they find the right one?

"I'm not going on a broom," he told them. "Make Harry do it."

Ron gave him him a disappointed look, but Dudley wouldn't budge on this. His feet belonged on the ground! The terrifying fall into wherever they were only solidified that fact in his mind. The others could risk breaking their necks, but he was not going to move until they got the right key or decided to head back.

"It's fine, there's only three brooms anyways," Harry said as he mounted a broom and kicked off. Ron quickly followed, and Hermione joined them more shakily. Dudley watched in amusement as they flew around trying to grab keys. They were really bad at it!

"Look! That key has bent wings!" Harry cried as he pointed into a cloud of keys. Dudley couldn't see exactly what he was pointing at, but Ron and Hermione could! Together they managed to corner the key, and Harry was able to grab it.

"Nice flying!" Ron said.

Dudley groaned and pulled himself to his feet and got to the door just as Harry opened it. Hopefully the next trap would be as non-deadly as this one!

"Chess! Wicked!" Ron said as he saw the giant chessboard. Dudley didn't think it was very wicked. The pieces were huge and had no faces - they looked like they belonged in a horror film!

Ron had soon figured out a plan. He directed Dudley, Hermione, and Harry to take pieces on the board and began to play. Dudley nearly bolted the first time a piece was taken! The pieces hit so hard that they _broke_ each other when they were taken! Dudley had never cared so much about Ron's chess skills in his life. Somehow, his friend managed to keep all of them safe until near the end of the game.

"I have to sacrifice myself," Ron said. "It's the only way to win!"

Hermione and Dudley tried arguing against it, but Ron was determined. He moved forward and the white queen's arm whipped around to hit him in the head. Dudley cried out as Ron was knocked off his feet and stopped moving. They quickly finished the game, then rushed over to Ron.

"He's still breathing!" Hermione exclaimed. "I think he's just knocked out!"

"We should turn back!" Harry said. "We're out of our league!"

"No!" Dudley insisted. "Ron would have wanted us to keep going!"

Dudley felt like Ron's courage had transferred to him as soon as Ron was knocked out. Ron was his best friend in the wizarding world! And he'd never forgive Dudley if they didn't keep going with the mission. They were committed. They were going to be heroes! Harry wouldn't ruin everything this time!

"Dudley's right," Hermione said. "This is more important! We'll be right back for Ron!"

Harry was outvoted, and this time Dudley led the way to the next room. He nearly changed his mind when the smell from the next room hit him.

"That's nasty!" he gagged.

"What is it?" Hermione asked.

"Dead...something," Dudley told her. He let her look past him.

"That's a troll!" she squeaked. "Good thing it's dead. We already know we're no match for a troll!"

Harry nodded, looking vaguely sick. What a wimp. They rushed through the room to the next door.

"Oh no!" Dudley said when flames flickered up in the door behind them. Harry seemed even worse. He was twitching and staring nervously at the bottles on the table in front of them. Dudley narrowed his eyes and tried to figure out why Harry was acting that way. Was he really that scared? It was pathetic!

"It's a logic puzzle!" Hermione said, "Most wizards haven't got an ounce of logic - this is quite clever!"

Dudley agreed, although of course he'd never tell her that. He reached into the back pocket of his pants and pulled out a slightly squashed candy bar. He was getting peckish, and Hermione was busy figuring out the logic puzzle, so it seemed like a good time for him to replenish his energy. Harry looked even sticker watching Dudley eat. Dudley grinned at him and chewed with his mouth wide open. It was fun making Harry uncomfortable!

"I've got it!" Hermione exclaimed a few minutes later. She pointed out two of the bottles. "This little one will take us forward and this one will take us back. But there's so little in the forward bottle! Hardly enough for one swallow!"

She looked at Harry expectantly. Dudley glared at her. "This was _our_ adventure! Harry's just a tag-along! He doesn't get to be the hero!"

"I'm not saying I want to go, but it's probably dangerous! I don't think any of us should go," Harry said.

"Nonsense," said Hermione. "We made it all the way here! We're so close!"

"Exactly," said Dudley, "so get out of my way!"

He elbowed past Hermione and grabbed the smallest bottle she had pointed to. He sniffed it cautiously, then gulped it down. There's no way he'd let Harry get the glory now! The potion felt like I've running through him, and he knew the fire wouldn't hurt him now. His cousin stood between him and the door forward. He looked terrified, but slowly lifted his wand.

"Don't do this! It's too dangerous," he said. Dudley no longer had any doubts about whether Harry was in league with Voldemort or his followers. Why else would he be so against Dudley going through? So he just smirked and sprinted towards the door.

"Move!" he bellowed as he rushed Harry. Harry started to speak but wasn't quick enough. Dudley elbowed him out of the way and stepped through the black flames.

A/N: I really didn't mean to break up this chapter with a cliffhanger, but it's a lot longer than any of my previous ones so it just kinda happened... In other exciting news, I officially have over 100 favs on this story! This is my first and only fanfic, so that's pretty exciting for me. Thanks to everyone who's reading, and especially those who take the time to give me feedback!


	22. End of First Year

CHAPTER 22

"DUDLEY!" Harry yelled as his cousin pushed past him into the room with the mirror. He rushed to the small bottle laying on the floor, desperately hoping there was any left. There wasn't.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no," Hermione was chanting as she tugged at her bushy hair.

Harry was mentally freaking out. He had left under his cloak after going to bed early, claiming he was tired after not sleeping enough during exams. He had waited on the third floor for ages, and had been surprised when the door to Fluffy's room suddenly opened. Someone must have gone in while invisible - he'd read about disillusionment charms, but they were far beyond his current capabilities. He'd thought for sure that he'd be able to stop Hermione, Ron, and Dudley, but somehow things had gone horribly wrong, and here they were!

Hermione seemed to snap out of her chanting. "What do we do!"

Harry thought about it. They couldn't go forward, so it seemed like the only thing they could do was go back. "We need to get help. Fast," he said.

"Yes," Hermione agreed.

They drank the potion that would take them back and ran as fast as they could through the troll room to the chess room.

"How will we get Ron out?" Hermione asked. "He's too heavy to carry!"

"We'll have to leave him here," Harry said. "He's not in danger right now, and Dudley is!"

Hermione looked torn, but she had to agree with his logic.

"C'mon, grab a broom," Harry called back at her.

They flew as fast as they could back down the trap door, up to the top and past Fluffy. Hermione got off in the third floor corridor. "I can't fly through the halls, Harry! I'll hit something! You go ahead!" she called out. Harry didn't even acknowledge her he was so focused. He had just turned the corner a bit faster than he was really comfortable with, when he saw a dark figure looming in front of him. He tried to stop, but he was going too fast and slammed into whoever it was.

Please don't let it be Snape, he thought to himself as he looked up. Two glittering black eyes framed by lank black hair glared back at him. It was Snape. He was going to be expelled. Even so, he had to get Snape to save Dudley.

"Potter?" Snape said, a look of pure hatred on his face.

"Yes sir," Harry replied. Snape looked like he had won the lottery. He opened his mouth to speak again, but Harry cut him off.

"I know I'm in a lot of trouble, but you need to come with me! Ron's unconscious and Dudley's with whoever was trying to steal from Dumbledore!"

Snape grabbed Harry by the back of his robes and the broom, and began to run to Fluffy's room.

"Granger?" Snape growled as he saw Hermione outside the door. "You two are to wait here. Running will not prevent you from being expelled and will make me even angrier with you."

He didn't wait for a response before muttering 'Expecto Patronum' and telling the silvery doe that leapt from his wand to find Dumbledore and bring him immediately. He glared once more at Harry and Hermione before running into Fluffy's room and slamming the door behind him.

Harry must have have gone into shock. He slumped to the ground and couldn't move, couldn't think. Hermione must have been in the same condition, because all he could hear were her panicked breaths and faint harp music coming from Fluffy's room. He thought he might be floating apart from his body and imagined he was looking down on himself. He could see his body shaking and crying, but it almost felt like it was somebody else's body and he was just watching it.

He wasn't sure how long it took for something to change. He thought the door might have opened, but he didn't see anyone come out. Nothing really mattered except watching his funny little body with a detached calmness as it panicked without him.

Eventually - and he couldn't say whether it was minutes or hours later - Snape came back, two bodies floating behind him. Someone else rushed into the corridor, then a third person. Harry vaguely felt himself getting pulled to his feet, and then he was rushed through the halls. A vial was put into his hand, and he thought he must have drank it, but then there was only blackness.

* * *

Harry opened his eyes. It was bright, and the walls were white. This wasn't his dorm room! Where was he? He groped around for his glasses and eventually found them on a table beside the bed. The hospital wing came into focus and he suddenly remembered everything that had happened the night before.

"Dudley!" he said, realizing that he didn't know whether his cousin was okay.

"Mister Potter! You're awake!" said the matron of the hospital wing. She came over to him and began to fuss over him with her wand.

"Where's Dudley? Is he okay?" Harry asked as he struggled to get up and away from her.

"You are not to move," Madam Pomfrey told him sternly. "Your cousin is alive, but still unconscious. Mister Weasley and Miss Granger are also on the mend."

She reached up and drew back the curtain separating his bed from the one beside it to show him Hermione. The young witch was fast asleep, her bushy hair nearly hiding her face completely. Harry relaxed and let Madam Pomfrey continue her diagnostics. It was reassuring to have visual proof that his friend was going to be fine.

Later, he found himself waking up again. He hadn't noticed himself falling back asleep, and when he looked over to the bed beside him he saw that Hermione was awake as well.

"Oh Harry!" she exclaimed when she noticed he was awake. "I'm so sorry I dragged you into this! It's all my fault! Oh, if only I hadn't gotten it into my head that we had to stop whoever was working for you-know-who! Only I was so sure it was Snape!"

"S'alright," Harry said. "We're alive, at least!"

"But because of me we're probably going to be ex-expelled," Hermione sobbed.

Harry watched her awkwardly. He supposed he might go over and give her a hug, but he wasn't sure whether it would help.

"Ah, Mister Potter, Miss Granger, I see that you have awoken."

Harry looked up to see the headmaster walking over to them. He quickly looked down at the sheets, knowing that he wouldn't be able to stop himself from glaring at Dumbledore if he looked up.

"I would like to discuss your adventure last night," he said. Hermione went very pale and wiped the tears from her eyes, then began blurting out the entire story as fast as she could. She told the headmaster all about her suspicions, getting Ron and Dudley involved, and finally her perspective on what had happened down the trapdoor. Harry interjected once or twice with details he thought were important, but mostly let her tell the story. It worked perfectly for him, after all, not to have to lie.

"I see," said Dumbledore when she had finished her story, his fingers steepled in front of him and his piercing eyes looking intently at Hermione.

"Please, sir," Hermione said. "Are we going to be expelled?"

Dumbledore was silent for a moment, and Hermione began to cry again.

"W-well, even if I'm going to be expelled, I don't think Harry should be! He tried to talk us out of it multiple times! All he did wrong was be out after curfew!"

Dumbledore smiled kindly at her. "I do not believe any expulsions will be necessary. After all, you did try to talk to a professor and were only doing what you thought was right. You ought to be proud that you exhibit the traits of your house so perfectly."

"Thank you! Thank you!" Hermione exclaimed, glowing at the praise. She turned to Harry and said, "we aren't going to be expelled!"

"I heard," Harry said with a smile. He couldn't believe it! He wasn't going to be expelled! He shared a wide grin with Hermione before he thought about it a bit more. Why weren't they being expelled? It was the only logical thing for the headmaster to do in this situation. Nevertheless, he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he kept his doubts to himself.

"What about Dudley?" he asked instead. "What happened once he went on without us?"

"I'm afraid that Mister Dursley is still asleep," the headmaster told him.

"But sir! Did you-know-who get what he was looking for? It was him, wasn't it?" Hermione asked.

"Professor Snape has informed me of his version of the events that transpired, but alas, it is not my story to tell. You will have to wait for young Mister Dursley to wake up. Now I had better leave you to your rest before Madam Pomfrey decides that I am distracting you from your healing."

With that, he turned and walked out of the room.

Harry and Hermione chatted while they waited for Ron and Dudley to wake up. Hermione was hoping that they might see each other over the summer, but Harry told her they would probably only be able to send letters to keep in touch and that it should be kept to the muggle post. He leaned back against his pillows and enjoyed Hermione rambling on about all the things she had planned for the summer but didn't say much. After all, he wasn't looking forward to the summer break very much.

Eventually Dudley woke up, and Dumbledore came back to the hospital wing. There was a bit of a fuss as Dudley went off at him for keeping such dangerous things in a school for children (a sentiment Harry completely agreed with) and hiring someone working for Voldemort. Harry couldn't hear what they were saying clearly, thought, so he hoped Dudley would tell him later.

His wish came true, and Madam Pomfrey let him and Hermione get out of bed to talk to him. By then, Ron had woken up as well, and was just as keen to know what had happened.

"It was Quirrel!" Dudley said as soon as they arrived. "When I ran in, he was staring at this big mirror and he didn't even notice me until I gasped. He was only pretending to be a moron so he wouldn't seem suspicious! Bet he was a slimy Slytherin when he was in school."

Harry frowned at him.

"Anyways, he was surprised it wasn't you, Harry, and started mumbling about wanting a stone - are all wizards mental? They always say on the telly that if you're in a dangerous situation like with bank robbers you should get them to talk so help can get there before they kill you, so I asked him what he was doing. Then he blabbed on a bit about how much he hates you, Harry, and how I should join him - but there's no way I'd join a terrorist group! Honestly, it got a bit boring until some other voice said to 'use the boy' in a creepy whispery voice. Then he made me stand in front of the mirror and suddenly I could see mum and dad! Only I was older and wearing a really smart suit with the Grunning's logo and there was a beautiful girl hanging off my arm! D'you think it shows the future?"

"It shows you what you want most," Harry told him.

"How do you know that?" Hermione asked.

"I found it over Christmas while I was bored and wandering around the school," he said, which wasn't entirely a lie. "I see my parents too," he admitted. "That's how I knew it didn't show the future."

"Oh," said Dudley, looking disappointed.

"What happened next?" Ron asked.

"Oh yeah, apparently that wasn't what he thought I'd see, and he pushed me to the side, and then I think he forgot about me for the bit because he was just staring at the mirror and telling the creepy voice that he could see himself using the stone to resurrect him - then the voice said to let it see, and he unwrapped his turban and there was a _face_ on the back of his head! It was disgusting! Dumbledore thinks it was Voldemort, or what's left of him at least. He turned around to let the face see the mirror, then I guess he remembered me and sent a bunch of ropes out of his wand at me and said he'd deal with me later. I tried to move back towards the entrance, but…" he trailed off with an embarrassed look on his face.

"But what!" Ron was at the edge of his seat on the bed with Madam Pomfrey looking on disapprovingly.

"Well, I guess I tripped," said Dudley. "I blacked out, and next thing I knew, I was here!"

"Noooo!" Ron moaned.

"Did Dumbledore tell you what happened next?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, apparently Snape came and duelled with Quirrel, but had to protect me as well, so Quirrel got away and took the whole mirror with him."

"How did he get the whole mirror out?" Hermione asked.

Dudley gave her a look like she was daft. "You're a witch. You don't think there's a spell that could shrink something?"

"Oh yeah," Hermione blushed.

"So Dumbledore thinks that Quirrel got the stone he was looking for?" Harry asked cautiously.

"Guess so," Dudley shrugged. "He didn't really say."

"That's horrid!" Hermione exclaimed.

"Yeah, all that effort for nothing," Ron sulked.

"Absolutely nothing," Dudley agreed. "We're not even getting medals or anything! Dumbledore said that our reward was not getting expelled. Can you believe that!"

"That's not fair," Ron agreed.

Harry thought that it was perfectly fair, but he kept that thought to himself. He had a horrible guilty feeling that he should tell someone that the stone was safe and bundled up in his trunk, but that would bring about a whole slew of questions that likely _would_ get him expelled. No, better to let them think the worst. Besides, it would do no harm for Dumbledore to be more cautious and Voldemort to spend time trying to get the stone out of the mirror.

Still, the guilt followed him even after he was discharged. The final days before going home were uneventful. He had one last tea with Hagrid and finally got his Gringotts key back.

Harry had filled Neville in on what had happened. It seemed that Neville had eventually managed to escape the body bind and had immediately gone to Professor McGonagall. She told him to stay in the common room, then rushed off. Neville was horrified that Harry had been dragged into the plan with them and was very relieved that he wasn't going to be expelled (although he wouldn't have minded if Dudley hadn't come back to Hogwarts next year).

Hermione was on a tear trying to figure out what the stone Quirrel had been after was. After a lot of research, she decided that the most likely candidate was the Philosopher's stone.

"It can turn lead to gold!" she told Harry. "But more importantly, it can be used to brew the elixir of life - making the drinker _immortal_!"

"Y-You-know-who might be IMMORTAL?," Neville shouted.

"He did already survive death once," Harry mused. "So really, what's changed?"

Hermione scowled at him. "Fine, maybe immortality isn't the _worst_ thing, but if he has lots of gold that could be really bad."

"Th-that's true," Neville added. "My gran told me that in the l-last war he was bribing all sorts of ministry officials."

"I would never take bribes that went against my morals," Hermione said loftily.

Harry rolled his eyes. Hermione could be very self-righteous at times.

"I wonder why he'd need to be resurrected if he was never dead," Harry said to change the subject. "Although Dudley did say he was just a face on the back of Quirrel's head. Maybe resurrected means a new body."

"You're probably right," Hermione said.

The conversion petered out after that, and soon it was time for them to get ready for the end of year feast. Harry put on his least shabby robes and pointy black hat and joined the rest of the students for a delicious feast. The Great Hall was decked out in blue and silver, the Ravenclaw colors. Slytherin was a very close second, but it seemed that the points Harry had lost over the term had been too much to overcome. The others in his house seemed to realize that as well, and even people who had been quite civil to him after Christmas were glaring at him or pretending he didn't exist.

Soon after Harry arrived, Dumbledore entered and the hall went silent. Harry zoned out - he didn't care much to hear Dumbledore go on about how clever the Ravenclaw's had been to win the house cup. He wasn't so out of it that he didn't notice Dumbledore staring at him with a pensive sort of look when the cheering had stopped and the feast had appeared on the table. It made him nervous.

His nerves only increased when Snape told him to go to the headmaster's office after dinner. Why did Dumbledore want to see him? Was he going to ask about the stone?

"Lemon drops," Snape growled at the gargoyle guarding Dumbledore's office. "I presume you'll be able to find your way to the headmaster's office? You seem to be very adept and finding things you shouldn't."

"Yes sir," Harry replied, trying to keep a contrite look on his face. Snape sneered and strode off, black cape billowing behind him.

When Harry turned back to the gargoyle he found that it had politely stepped out of his way. He thanked it, then felt silly for thanking a (most likely) inanimate object. The spiral staircase up to the office seemed to go on forever, and he imagined that with each footstep the apprehension in his chest sunk a little bit deeper into him. By the time he reached the top it was all he could do to keep his face neutral.

"Harry, my boy," Dumbledore greeted him. "Please come in."

Harry walked over and sat in the cushy armchair Dumbledore had gestured towards while admiring the office around him. It suited Dumbledore perfectly - it was bright and vibrant, and full of books and funny contraptions that whirred and puffed smoke. The armchair was purple and incredibly comfortable. Dumbledore offered Harry a lemon candy from a bowl on his desk, but Harry declined as politely as he could.

They sat in silence for a long, awkward moment. Dumbledore seemed to be regarding Harry intensely, so Harry did his best not to fidget.

"I was wondering whether you might like to talk to me about your perspective of recent events," Dumbledore said.

"Erm, didn't you already get the story from Hermione and Dudley?" Harry asked awkwardly, trying not to bring attention to the fact that he'd rather talk about anything else.

Dumbledore smiled benevolently. "Even so, I find I am most interested in your perspective."

Harry didn't know what to do. He couldn't tell Dumbledore what had happened - he'd be expelled for stealing!

"Do you know what Voldemort was after?" Dumbledore asked him when he awkwardly stared at his hands.

"The Philosopher's Stone, I think," Harry replied.

"And do you know why he wanted it?" Dumbledore continued.

"Dudley said he needed to be resurrected. But what I don't understand, sir, is how he's alive in the first place! I thought he died when I was a baby!"

"Indeed," Dumbledore replied. "I believe your cousin told you what state Voldemort was in, correct?" Harry nodded. "It is my understanding that although you defeated him as a baby he did not die, but somehow remained bound to the earth, living as a shade. The Philosopher's Stone would allow him to regain his body, should he somehow manage to get it."

Harry got the impression that Dumbledore was not very concerned about the stone. Or he could just be a very good actor! Still, it was suspicious. Harry tried to change the subject again.

"If you don't mind, sir - it's just, I was a baby! How could I have defeated anyone? Aunt Petunia said that's impossible."

Dumbledore smiled. "I think there may be quite a few things your aunt does not know, don't you? No, I knew your parents. Lily and James were two of the most loving parents I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, and I believe that their love for you is what protected you from the wrath of Voldemort that night."

Harry scoffed. Love! That was just an emotion!

"Love may be 'just' an emotion," Dumbledore said, seeming to know exactly what Harry was thinking, "but you would be hard pressed to find a more powerful feeling. Hate can drive you to do unspeakable - but incredible - things, but love -". He smiled and looked lost in thought. "When you have people you care about, you can accomplish the _impossible_."

Harry thought about it. He didn't remember his parents, but he knew he would still do anything to have a family that loved him. His reflection in the Mirror or Erised proved that!

"You must understand, Harry, that there are many forms of love," Dumbledore continued. "The platonic love one has for close friends, romantic love, familial love - all can drive a wizard to become more than he ever thought he could be. I do hope you find friendships like that. I can tell that you have had a difficult year."

"Nobody in Slytherin likes me," Harry admitted. "They see me as the boy-who-lived and just pretend to like me. But Neville is the best friend I can hope for, Hermione too!"

Dumbledore smiled at him, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a way that made Harry notice how the rest of smiles hadn't been as real. "I don't think you could ask for more loyal friends than those two," he said to Harry. "Now I do believe that it is getting rather late, and knowing many boys your age, I'd wager you have some packing to do."

Harry blushed. He was dreading going home and had indeed put off his packing until he absolutely had to. He had considered asking to stay at Hogwarts over the summer, but who would he ask? His head of house hated him and he was still wary of Dumbledore, no matter how nice he seemed. He stood and left the office.

* * *

The ride home on the Hogwarts Express was a fairly quiet affair. Harry found a compartment with Hermione and Neville. He wasn't in the mood for talking, so he mostly stared out the window and vaguely listened to Neville and Hermione chatting.

His Gringotts key rested heavily in his pocket. He knew that he owed the Dursleys money for living with them for so many years, but he was worried they'd take more than he could afford and leave him just as penniless as he had started. He wished there was some way to check how much he had before his family got access to it, but he didn't even have an owl he could send.

Neville and Hermione both gave him a hug goodbye on the platform. Hermione promised to write him, and Harry promised Neville he'd tell him once he figured out how the squib-owned post office his aunt used worked. There was no way aunt Petunia would let him get mail by owl post!

He grabbed his and Dudley's trunks and heaved them over to where his aunt and uncle were doing their best to smother Dudley with affection, much to his cousin's embarrassment.

"Boy," uncle Vernon grunted in acknowledgement of Harry.

Harry stood back as a whole bunch of red-headed people made their way over to them, led by Dudley's friend, Ron Weasley. Harry sniggered a bit at how uncomfortable his aunt and uncle looked, especially when Mr. Weasley became over excited about meeting real live muggles and tried to get uncle Vernon to explain the "felophone" and "eclektricity". Soon it became uncomfortable for Harry as well when Mrs. Weasley insisted on giving him a smothering hug right after Dudley. After a very awkward conversation, the adults seemed to decide that they would discuss having Ron and Dudley visit each other over the summer (and Mrs. Weasley insisted Harry come visit them as well). They said their goodbyes and headed back to number 4 Privit Drive. Harry was already counting down the days until he'd be back at Hogwarts.

A/N: I find Dumbledore incredibly difficult to write... hopefully it didn't turn out terribly. Anyways, that's year one done! Let me know what you think!


	23. Summer School

CHAPTER 23

Dudley was so excited to be going home that he was literally bouncing in his seat of the car all the way home! No more freaks aside from Harry for a whole four months! Well, except Ron's family if he ended up going over there. He'd heard stories about Ron's house though - horrible pranks and magic and people everywhere - and thought he might rather Ron came to visit him instead. That way he could show Ron what was normal. Ron had never even heard of video games! It was a tragedy, really.

Dudley cheered as his dad locked their Hogwarts trunks under the stairs and took great pleasure out of the longing looks his cousin sent at the cupboard door every time he walked past. His mum had cooked his absolute favourites for dinner, and after dinner he had a bunch of presents to open, including a new gameboy to replace the one that had broken as soon as he got to Hogwarts.

Dudley was about to start trying out his new gameboy games when his mum came and sat beside him, looking very nervous and serious. His dad came in shortly afterwards, dragging Harry from the kitchen where he had been doing the dishes.

"Dud, you're going to make a fine employee at Grunnings one day," his dad said.

"Okay?" Dudley said.

"Oh Diddykins, we know you love your summers, but -" his mum said.

"But what?" Dudley asked, narrowing his eyes. He did not like the way this conversation was going.

"Well, son, your mother and I have discussed it, and, well, we've hired a tutor to make sure you don't fall behind on your proper schooling."

Dudley sat on the couch reeling. He was going to have to do school in the _summer_?! And his parents were the ones making him do it?! How could they do this to him! He regained his ability to speak when he noticed that Harry was sniggering from his spot on the stool near them.

"THAT'S NOT FAIR! I WON'T DO IT! YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!" he roared. His mum and dad tried to calm him down, but they should have seen this coming! He was going to give them a tantrum the likes of which they had never seen before! He screamed and threw things and used every bad word he knew, but they didn't give in! Even his magic started acting up, pulling photos off of the walls and making the glasses on the coffee table explode. His mum was crying and looking hopefully at his dad, but his dad had a grim resolution to his features that Dudley had never seen before and wouldn't back down.

Eventually Dudley was so tired that he couldn't keep up the tantrum anymore, so he stormed up to his room and shut the door. A while later he heard a tentative knock on his door. He didn't say anything, but his parents came in anyways.

"Why do you hate me?" he whined.

"Oh baby," his mother simpered. "Of course we could never hate you, our perfect little boy! We just need you to be able to get a job after you finish at Hogwarts!"

"Grunnings won't hire anyone without a highschool diploma," his dad said helplessly. "And if you have to go to _that_ school, you can't get behind on what you really need - reading, writing and 'rithmatic! Not to mention the structure that is obviously not there at _that_ school - dragons! What is Dumbledore thinking!"

Dudley didn't know what to do. He'd never not gotten his way after a tantrum, except that one time at the amusement park on his birthday the summer before Hogwarts. And there was no way he was going to stay in the wizarding world after he left Hogwarts - was there really no way to get a job without a highschool diploma?

"If I have to do school then Harry does too!" Dudley decided. It would mean he'd have to see his cousin more, but that was well worth taking away Harry's freedom!

"Of course, whatever you want," his mom said as she gave him a tight hug.

"We won't have your tutor here for a week yet, anyways," his dad said. "So you've got some time to have a bit of a proper break."

There was some good news. He was already looking forward to spending time with Piers and the gang at the park! And if a tutor couldn't deal with him… Well, that would just leave him free again. Dudley smiled a bit at that. He was very, very good at bothering people when he tried!

The next day, Dudley went over to Piers' house and caught up with his best friend. It was a bit awkward at first since they hadn't seen each other in so long, but soon enough it felt like he had never left. Mrs Polkiss kicked them out of the house after lunch so she could have some quiet time. Piers said she wanted to open a bottle of wine and thought he didn't know she drank during the day.

"Adults think kids are so dumb," Dudley said sympathetically.

Regardless, Piers had told their other friends to meet them in the park that afternoon, so soon enough the whole gang was back together. Dudley immediately fell back into the rhythm of finding a younger kid and giving them a hard time, but for some reason it didn't seem quite as fun as it had before. Maybe it was because the other boys seemed to think that Piers was the leader, not Dudley. It wasn't his fault he had to go away for school! He was still the biggest and strongest, and if he had all summer to show them who was boss he was sure it would go back to normal, but he was going to be stuck doing school! The worst part was that he couldn't tell his friends why he was ditching them because some dumb statue of secrecy would be broken. But they were wizards, weren't they? Surely they could just fix it!

A hour or two after Dudley and his friends got to the park they had gotten rid of all the easy marks and were getting bored. The only kids left were older or under the protective watch of parents or babysitters.

"This is boring," said Malcolm.

Dudley grunted in agreement. He was struggling to remember what they normally did when all of the crybaby kids went home.

"Is your cousin back too?" Piers asked.

"You bet," said Dudley as he caught on to what Piers was probably suggesting. "How do you lot feel about going Harry hunting?" He cracked his knuckles.

"D'you know where he is?" Malcolm asked.

"Probably in those bushes he thinks we don't know about," Dudley said gleefully. "He's not allowed inside during the day!"

They set off, looking in the quieter areas of the park that kids normally avoided because there was no play equipment or flat grass to play on.

"Mum says they caught a murder hobo here a few months back," Malcolm said with trepidation. Gordon and Dennis confirmed that they had also heard that story.

"Your mums are liars," Piers declared. "My mum said there are only ever older kids fooling around and doing drugs. They just think they're protecting you or something."

"The forests at my school are way creepier anyways," Dudley told them as he led the way. Sure enough, they didn't run into any murder hobos, and after pushing their way through some bushes Dudley spotted his cousin's messy black hair.

"Let's get him!" he shouted as he rushed towards him, his friends close behind. Harry looked up in alarm then bolted. They chased him through the bushes and out onto the streets. For some reason, Harry didn't seem as fast as he had before. Or maybe Dudley was faster than he had used to be thanks to all the stairs he had to climb at school. Whatever the reason, Harry couldn't get away as easily as he had the summer before. They managed to corner him in an alley with a fence that was just a bit too tall for Harry to climb over. They stood with their hands on their knees panting and staring at each other.

"Okay, you caught me," Harry panted. "What're you going to do now?"

"I dunno," said Dudley grinning. "What do you think we should do, lads?"

"Let's give him a super atomic wedgie!" Piers suggested.

"How about snake bites all up his arms," grinned Dennis.

"Hey, that was MY idea," Gordon said.

"I dunno about you, but that hair looks like it needs a noogie!" Malcolm sneered.

"You need to have five against one to get me? How flattering," Harry said.

"Get him!" Dudley commanded. The other boys spread out in a line and circled around Harry.

"Doesn't seem very smart to insult us now, does it," Dudley said as he gave Harry a shove over to Dennis.

Harry stumbled but sneered back at Dudley. "You wouldn't know smart if it smacked you upside the head," he said. Dennis grabbed his arm.

"Wanna say that again?" Dudley sneered as Dennis began to twist the skin on Harry's arm. His cousin winced but stared at him defiantly. They all took turns shoving Harry around their circle and poking, kicking and giving him snake bites as they went. It took a bit, but Harry eventually started sniffling about the time his glasses got knocked off his face.

"Ready for the super atomic wedgie?" Dudley said. Malcolm and Gordon grabbed Harry's arms. Harry began to twist and flail trying to escape, but his pathetic scrawny limbs were no match for Dudley's friends. Dudley, Piers and Dennis grabbed ahold of the waistband of his underwear.

"One, two, THREE," Dudley said and they all pulled up as hard as they could. Harry collapsed to the ground moaning.

"You're pathetic," Dudley said. "I HATE you!"

He and his gang gave his cousin a few kicks, but he was hardly responding so they got bored and left. It was about time for the ice cream truck to make its way through the park, after all.

* * *

The first week of the holiday was absolutely awful for Harry. Dudley and his gang were relentless in finding him wherever he hid and chasing him down. The worst thing was that Dudley had lost a bunch of weight during Hogwarts (something that aunt Petunia was determined to fix if the amount of food cooked for each meal was anything to go by) from all of the stairs and being too scared to eat anything that looked remotely 'not right'. Meanwhile, the only exercise Harry had gotten was when he climbed down the rope under Fluffy and flown on a broom a couple times, and on top of that, he was hungry now that he was back on his do-anything-wrong-and-no-food-for-you Dursley diet.

Still, Harry was determined to find places that Dudley and his gang couldn't get him, and he was getting better and better at avoiding them again. The letters from Neville and Hermione made him feel a lot better though! After Weasley's family owl had crashed into their kitchen to deliver a letter to Dudley, aunt Petunia had been so relieved that Harry's friends were writing him through the muggle post that she had forgotten to confiscate his letters! Hermione had helped Neville with his first letter, and although he did use rather too many stamps, it had found its way to Harry.

Aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon had heard all about their adventure back at Hogwarts from Dudley and had been furious at him for allowing their precious son to get into such a dangerous situation. It was only Dudley backing him up on the fact that he had tried to dissuade them and him handing over his Gringotts key that had tempered their anger somewhat. They had then shifted their displeasure to Dumbledore for once more not knowing how to keep a school safe, much to Harry's relief. They had written some very strongly worded letters to the headmaster, and were even considering talking to a reporter from the Daily Prophet! For now they had decided against it because they wanted as little to do with the wizarding world as possible when they could avoid it. Harry was hoping that they would keep that perspective since anything they told the reporters about him was bound to paint him in a negative light.

One thing they hadn't cared about, for once, was the fact that Harry had outscored Dudley in every class, despite getting mostly A's (acceptable) himself. Dudley had nearly failed most of his courses, and had a letter from Professor McGonagall expressing her concern about his efforts.

"Of course the freak is better at doing freakish things," uncle Vernon had said. "I'd like to see him outscore Dudley in a _real_ course."

"Our Diddykins only needs to learn to keep his magic controlled anyways," aunt Petunia had said.

Harry was almost excited for the tutor by the time the week was over! Surely it couldn't be worse than looking over his shoulder every 10 seconds to make sure Dudley and his gang hadn't found him again, so he went into his first tutoring session with Mr. Harvey with an open mind.

It was a disaster. Not for Harry, but for Mr. Harvey! By two hours into the day, Dudley had terrorized the poor man so badly that he packed up and left nearly in tears! It was the best entertainment Harry had seen all summer. Book pages were ripped, spitballs were flying, and Dudley's insistence that it was opposite day had the man stumbling over his words. Dudley smugly went to hang out with his friends while aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon blamed Harry and called up some more tutors.

The next tutor, Mr. Whitacre lasted 2 days before he quit. Mr. Angelman lasted a whole week and managed to get some teaching in before he quit as well. Uncle Vernon had tried to get Harry to stop going to tutoring, but Dudley kicked up such a fuss that it wasn't fair that uncle Vernon conceded. After Mr. Hemsworth got fired for daring to suggest that Dudley was a hellspawn - that had been a wonderful conversation to eavesdrop on - they had a few days off while uncle Vernon and aunt Petunia tried to figure out what to do next. They still refused to believe that their perfect son could be the reason for the tutor's failures, but they were halfway through the summer and Dudley was no closer to catching up on the muggle curriculum.

Drastic measures were taken. Mr. Minton was called in from somewhere far enough away to have never heard of Dudley Dursley. He showed up at the door with a heavily starched shirt, an old-fashioned buttoned vest, and such a no-nonsense face that it put professor McGonagall to shame. And he was _good_. He seemed to have a sixth sense for when Dudley was trying something, and had immediately picked up on the fact that the Dursley's desperately wanted Dudley to be intelligent and Harry to be slow.

After a week of tutoring, it was clear that he only used his strict face when he was asserting his authority. Whenever they were behaving, he became almost a completely different person who was much more fun! He pulled Harry aside to 'talk about his difficulties' as he told the Dursleys at the end of the week. In reality, the conversion went much differently than the Dursleys imagined.

"You will never succeed in life if you constantly play down your abilities," Mr. Minton told Harry.

"I'm not!" Harry tried to argue. How could Mr. Minton know? Harry had so much practice making himself seem dumb like Dudley!

Mr. Minton frowned at him. "You and I both know that is not the truth, regardless of what you would like your aunt and uncle to believe."

"You can't tell them! You'll just get fired!" Harry said.

"I am not suggesting that I kick up a fuss about your relative intelligence," Mr. Minton explained patiently. "I simply cannot abide a young boy wasting his potential. I have a proposition for you."

"A proposition?" Harry asked.

"Yes, a deal wherein we both get what we want," Mr. Minton elaborated. "I propose that you and I make a show of you struggling to keep up with the work Dudley is doing. That will appease both him and his parents. I can then assign you remedial work - which will in reality be more interesting and advanced."

Harry made a face. He didn't really want to do more work than he had to, especially because he wasn't planning on leaving the magical world like Dudley was. "What will you do if I say no? Will you tell the Dursley's then?"

"Of course not. That would not do anyone any good," Mr. Minton reassured him. "I can see that you have reservations about learning, but I am willing to bet that you have not had very interesting instructors. Tell me, what do you know about natural history?"

"Uh…" Harry said. "It's the history… of what's natural?" he guessed.

"You are technically correct. Natural history is the study of the natural world, meaning that researchers must immerse themselves in nature, often in perilous, exotic locations. I have journals and stories of these adventures I think you may find you rather enjoy, among other things. Why not give this a try, and if you hate it you can go back to learning the basics with your cousin."

"Alright," Harry said. He was still skeptical, but who wouldn't be at least a little interested in real life adventure stories!

The next day, Mr. Minton had a discussion with Harry's relatives before their lesson. Dudley came out looking rather smug.

"Mr. Minton thinks you're too dumb to keep up with me!" Dudley bragged.

"Yeah right," Harry scoffed.

"He does! And you have to do extra work now!"

Harry did his best to look upset.

Mr. Minton came into the living room and set up for the day's lesson. Once the boys had started on a worksheet, Mr. Minton made a show of checking over Harry's and telling him that he would have to redo it. He took Harry over to the corner of the room to do some 'remedial reading' and gave him a journal with a note on the front telling him to read and summarize the bookmarked entry.

Harry sighed and got to it. The handwriting was a bit difficult to read, but he was soon sucked into the story regardless. Whoever had written the journal had been all the way in the Amazon rainforest! The entry he had been told to read detailed an amazing trip through the jungle with a local who hardly spoke English in search for a rare species of frog. On the way they had seen a huge python and something called a caiman that Harry had never heard of, and one of the writer's friends had been bitten by bullet ants! Apparently their bites were so painful that they had to make a stretcher to carry him back out. Then they almost got lost and had barely made it back before night. Harry could picture it all in his head - it put his adventure at school to shame, even without magic!

He wrote a summary and gave it to Mr. Minton at the end of the lesson.

"Good work today Mr. Dursley," Mr. Minton said. "You are free to leave."

Dudley got away as fast as he could and was out the door within seconds.

"Did you enjoy your extra work?" Mr. Minton asked.

"Yeah!" said Harry. "I thought you were going to make me read boring books, but this is really cool! Who wrote it?"

"My son, Stephen" Mr. Minton said with a smile. "He is quite the naturalist - always off on one adventure or another."

"Will I get to read more tomorrow?" Harry asked shyly. He wanted to know what else happened to Stephen in the rainforest!

"Perhaps," Mr. Minton said. "If you finish your fractions in good time."

"I will!" Harry declared. Mr. Minton began to pack his books away.

"Did you find the journal easy enough to read?" Mr. Minton asked.

"There were some words I didn't know," Harry admitted. "Like caiman! I think it's an animal, but I've never heard of it."

"I will leave you a dictionary next time. But just this once I will give you a free definition: a caiman is an animal like an alligator. Some species can grow up to 15 ft long - over three times as long as you are tall."

"Wicked!" Harry breathed.

"Here," Mr. Minton said as he reached into his bag and pulled out a book. "This is a reference book my son adored when he was around your age. You may borrow it."

"Thank you!" Harry said as he took a quick glance through the pages. Illustrations and pictures of a whole host of animals stared back out at him, along with information on what they ate, their habitat, and other fun facts.

With Dudley and Harry settled into the routine of tutoring, the summer was turning out very ordinary, much to the Dursley's pleasure. The only odd thing that happened occured on Harry's birthday. For one thing, Harry got proper presents from Hermione and Neville in the post! Neville had sent him a wand polishing kit so he could take care of the new wand he was going to get and Hermione had sent him a copy of Hogwarts, a History. She thought it was practically criminal that he hadn't read her favourite book.

But that wasn't the end of the surprises for the day. While uncle Vernon had Mr. and Mrs. Mason over, Harry had a visitor of his own. A poorly dressed house elf named Dobby had shown up in his roommate warning him not to go back to Hogwarts to avoid some terrible plot. After informing Harry that he couldn't tell Harry what the plot was or why he specifically was in danger he had begun to loudly punish himself for going against his master's wishes. Harry hoped that the house elves at Hogwarts were better treated than Dobby! The one he had met had certainly been better dressed and less, well, insane.

"Why does Mister Harry Potter wants to be going back to Hogwarts?" Dobby lamented after loudly banging his head on the window. "No friends bes sending him letters! No owls bes coming for you!"

"What? I have friends," Harry defended himself. "They use -" he cut himself off. If Dobby wanted to make sure Harry had no friends, then it was probably for the best that he didn't know how the muggle post worked.

"Will Harry Potter stay away from Hogwarts?" Dobby asked.

"What will you do if I say no?" Harry asked cautiously. "Not that I'm not considering listening to you!" he continued when he saw Dobby edge towards the door.

"Dobby must make the great Harry Potter understand!" Dobby said. "Dobby will be doing anything to convince Harry Potter to stay where he bes safe!"

"Okay," Harry said as he tried to think of what to do. His first instinct was to tell Dobby that there was absolutely no way he was staying here, but he wasn't sure what the crazy elf would do then. He seemed very determined to keep Harry away from Hogwarts and if he started any 'funny business', especially with the Masons here, Harry would be in a lot of trouble. He quickly decided to take the approach Mr. Minton had taught him: tell people what they want to hear and wait until they weren't watching to do what you wanted.

"That settles it then. I guess I won't go back," he said while he tried to look as morose as possible.

"Oh, Dobby is being so happy! Harry Potter will be safe from Dobby's mean master!"

Dobby was getting rather loud again, so Harry did his best to get him to leave. "You've convinced me, so shouldn't you be getting back before anyone notices you're gone?"

"The great Harry Potter is concerned for Dobby! Dobby will never forgets this," Dobby said. Great big tears dripped from his huge eyes and he blew his nose loudly on his pillowcase before snapping his fingers and disappearing with a loud _crack_. Harry winced as loud footsteps began to plod up the stairs. Clearly his visit had not gone unnoticed.

"What did I say about keeping it down!" uncle Vernon hissed into his bedroom. "What was that cracking noise? It better not have been any funny business!"

"Crack?" Harry said, innocently as possible. "Must've been the house settling. It can't be easy on it to have so much weight moving around inside."

Uncle Vernon sputtered, shook a meaty finger in silent warning then slammed his door shut and went back downstairs. Harry could hear him apologizing for the house shifting to Mr. Mason downstairs.

Harry leaned back on his bed and let out a sigh of relief. That could have gone much worse! He was worried about what Dobby would do when Harry went to Hogwarts after all. He felt a bit bad for lying to him when the elf did seem to be genuinely concerned with his safety, but figured that if Dobby did get upset with him for lying he may just stop trying to warn him - not something Harry was against.

The business deal was made, and uncle Vernon was in such a good mood that Harry didn't have any extra chores for days! Instead, he got to focus on tutoring, which was turning out far better than he ever would have imagined. Some days they did an activity like making egg parachutes, popsicle stick bridges, or electronic boards where you could connect wires to lights and fans to make them go. He did those with Dudley, but under Mr. Minton's watchful eye Dudley couldn't get away with breaking his things. Mr. Minton always praised Dudley more, even when Harry's things worked better which remarkably made Dudley less likely to try to bother Harry!

On most other days when they had worksheets, Harry got extra assignments. He made sure to pretend to hate them so Dudley wouldn't get suspicious. His aunt and uncle were also happier this way because Dudley got more one-on-one tutoring, which was what they wanted anyways. He got to read more about Stephen's adventures in the Amazon, which was the best part. He also did writing assignments, often from the perspective of the various animals from the reference book, and complex problems like figuring out the logistics of an exploration base. He calculated how much wood you would need to make a tree fort, how much that would cost, how long it would take to build, and how much food you would need to stock. Math was way cooler when it was used this way, even fractions!

Harry was sad when Mr. Minton said goodbye on the last day of tutoring. He was going to miss learning about Stephen's adventures! Mr. Minton gave him a list of names of other more famous adventurers and suggested that Harry find their books in the library if he wanted more adventure stories. He also gave Harry his very own copy of the Amazon reference book! It was even a newer edition than Stephen's old copy, and the photos were much better.

"Will you be here next summer?" Harry asked.

"Perhaps," Mr. Minton told him. "Unless something pressing comes up, should your uncle hire me, I do believe you will be seeing me again."

Harry and Mr. Minton exchanged a firm handshake, and then he was gone. Then Harry just had to survive a week until Hogwarts.

A/N: I almost forgot to post this today! Whoops! Anyways, here's another long chapter because there was no good place to break it up. This chapter didn't go at all the way I'd intended it to originally, so let me know what you think! Mr. Minton is my non-so-subtle nod towards the governess Mrs. Minton from the book 'Journey to the River Sea' by Eva Ibbotson, my favourite author when I was in elementary school.


	24. Back to School Shopping

CHAPTER 24

Dudley was nervous. He had managed to convince his parents to let Ron visit for a few days, and now he was due any minute. He had been educating Ron a bit through their letters over the summer, and had been very clear not to come using any magical transportation, but it was obvious that his parents were very anxious. They had only agreed because they had felt bad about the tutoring. Dudley had let them think that it was a horrible experience for him, but it actually hadn't been as bad as he had thought it would be. Mr. Minton was surprisingly fun, and unlike Hogwarts, the stuff he was learning might actually be useful. He may never need to know how to float a feather, but he would certainly need to be able to multiply and divide sums of money to know whether someone was trying to cheat him once he had a proper job!

The best part was that Mr. Minton had noticed that Dudley was smarter than Harry! After Hogwarts where everyone had gone on and on about how amazing Harry Potter was, Harry had to sit in the corner and do extra reading so he could do his figures as well as Dudley. Hah! Take that, stupid boy-who-lived!

There was a knock at the door. Dudley's dad went to answer it and was greeted enthusiastically by Ron's dad.

"Mr. Weasley," his dad greeted with only a slight tremor in his voice and nervous glance to make sure there were no umbrellas about.

"You must be Dudley's father! Please, call me Arthur! Ron tells me that your house is completely muggle - I must say, I've always wanted to see a real muggle house. Would you mind terribly if I came in for a moment?"

"Hey Ron!" Dudley greeted his friend. "C'mon, you have to see my toys! You really don't know what you're missing out on!"

He led Ron to his room, away from Mr. Weasley who had seemed oblivious to his parent's discomfort and was chattering excitedly about their toaster.

"This is my gameboy," he told Ron as he handed him the device.

"Right, it's the thing you play - what was it? Vibeo games?

"Video games. Here, I'll show you how to work it."

Dudley stuck Pac-Man into the game slot and powered it up.

"You have to eat the dots and fruits and stay away from the ghosts," he told Ron.

"Woah!" Ron exclaimed. "There's stuff on the screen! How do they do this without magic? We've got nothing like it!"

"Dad says you lot are stuck in the dark ages. No electricity! And writing using quills!"

Dudley and Ron played with the stuff in his room all afternoon. Ron was suitably impressed with all of Dudley's toys and games. It seemed that he mostly played chess and flew his broom for fun at home.

Before dinner Dudley carefully reminded Ron not to talk about magic because it made his parents uncomfortable. Ron did his best, but his questions about muggle technology made it painfully obvious that he was different. Harry seemed to find the fact that Ron was there hilarious. Dudley shot him a dark look as he quietly snickered into his bangers and mash when Ron asked yet another question about how cars worked.

After dinner, Ron was introduced to the wonders of television. It was amazing how excited he got about it! It was just a telly! They stayed up late goofing off, but it was okay because they could sleep in as late as they wanted the next morning.

"Your mum waits until you wake up to make breakfast?" Ron asked incredulously. "Mine gets my brothers to wake me up if I sleep in!"

"Fred and George sound like a nightmare to live with," Dudley said.

"They're not that bad when they're not pranking _me_ ," Ron said. "They've played some great pranks on Percy this summer!"

Ron wanted to see a muggle town after breakfast for some reason. Dudley tried to convince him that it was just houses that all looked very similar, but Ron thought it would still be interesting. Dudley made him promise not to act crazy whenever he saw something new, but he didn't really think Ron would be able to. Luckily his dad had helped him with their excuse - Ron was visiting from a very backwards town in the country that lived without modern comforts.

Ron kept forgetting not to walk on the road, and nearly got hit by a car. Dudley managed to control his excitement for a bit by teaching him how to ride a bike. He didn't like biking himself - bike seats were really uncomfortable and he hated going up hills - but it was funny to teach Ron.

"It's like flying on the ground!" Ron enthused as he shakily biked down Privet Drive.

The faint sound of tinkly music began in the distance. "What's that sound?" Ron asked.

"The ice cream truck. Wanna get some?"

"Oh, I don't have any money," Ron said sadly.

"Don't worry, I'll grab a fiver from my mum," Dudley said. "We can visit the park after!" Ron protested, but Dudley got the money anyways and dragged his friend down the road. They ran into Piers at the truck.

"Hey Dud, this your friend from boarding school?" he asked.

"Yeah. Ron, this is Piers."

The boys chatted as they ate their ice cream, but it quickly became clear that Ron and Piers didn't like each other. Dudley had to admit that since Piers didn't know about wizards, Ron must sound very dull. He didn't know any of the games or shows they liked, had only heard about muggle sports because Dudley had given him a crash course, and kinda looked like the sort of kid he and Piers would normally pick on.

"I'm going to the park," Piers said when he was done his ice cream. "Wanna come?"

"Nah," Dudley responded. "Me and Ron have other plans."

"I thought we were going to go to the park," Ron said, sounding confused.

"We'll go later," Dudley insisted. "We're going to the convenience store next."

Taking Ron to a convenience store turned out to be much more of an adventure than Dudley expected. He had never heard of any of the sweets and was amazed by the cooler for the drinks (electricity can make things cold too?!). Dudley showed him the penny candies and convinced him to put a bag together for them. Ron picked one of everything, even the gross cinnamon ones.

With no more excuses, Dudley led the way to the park as they snacked on their sweets. He was feeling embarrassed by Ron - it wasn't his fault he had never been around so many muggles before, but he certainly wouldn't make a great impression on the rest of his friends if Piers' reaction was anything to go by. Maybe he should've convinced him mum to let him go to Ron's place instead after all. He'd be surrounded by wizards, sure, but this could make his normal friends think he was lame!

"Hey, isn't that Harry?" Ron asked. Sure enough, his cousin was alone on the swing set. "What's he doing? Does he normally hang out alone."

"Of course," Dudley said. "Harry doesn't have any friends."

Ron looked surprised. Dudley was just glossing over the subject and steering Ron away from Harry when Piers and the gang showed up.

"Finally joining us? Good," he said.

"Hey look, it's Harry," Malcolm sneered. "Fancy a game of Harry hunting?"

"Harry hunting?" Ron asked.

"Yeah! It's a game Dud invented," Gordon said.

"We chase after Harry and then when we catch him we kick him around a bit. It's fun! You should join us," Piers said, eying Ron strangely.

"Erm, I don't know," Ron said. He glanced at Dudley.

"Yeah, maybe not today," Dudley said.

"Wow, when Dud said he was from the country I wasn't expecting much, but I didn't think he'd be such a drip," Piers whispered loudly to Dennis. Ron flushed bright red.

"Y'know, we don't really need Dudley to play," Malcolm said.

"Yeah! We'll get him without you," Gordon agreed.

"See you around Dudley, _Ron_ ," Piers said as he and the other boys turned to run towards the swings. Harry was pretty spaced out, but as soon as they hit the gravel around the swings he quickly realized he had been found and booked it down the path.

"Why d'you hang out with those bullies?" Ron asked in an accusing tone as soon as they were out of sight.

"They're not normally like that," Dudley said. He frowned a bit. "Not to me," he added.

"Do you often chase Potter?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, he deserves it!" Dudley said.

"What does he do to deserve it?" Ron asked, starting to get upset.

"Uh, y'know," Dudley floundered. "He ruins everything for me!"

"How?" Ron asked. "All I've seen him do since I came here is chores and hanging out alone at the park!"

"He's the reason I have to go to stupid Hogwarts! I'd have a normal life without him!"

" _I_ go to stupid Hogwarts!" Ron said, his voice getting louder and louder. "You made it sound like he lived like a king! But he wears baggy old clothes and I haven't seen a single person be nice to him here! Why'd you even invite me here if you care so much about being a boring muggle!"

"Muggles aren't boring! And I invited you because I thought you were my friend!" Dudley shouted back.

"That was before I knew you've been lying to me!" Ron said.

"I only did that to get you to quit mooning over the stupid boy-who-lived! It was all you'd talk about when we met!

"I wasn't mooning! He's famous - I just wanted to see the scar," Ron said.

"Mum and dad were right! Your lot are all a bunch of tossers," Dudley sneered at him.

"You take that back!" Ron yelled.

"Or what?" Dudley said, giving Ron a shove. Ron hadn't been expecting that. He stepped back, but hit a rock and fell over backwards.

"Ouch!" Ron cried as he grasped at his ankle. "That hurt!"

"Quit being a baby," Dudley said. "Y'know? I'm feeling up to some Harry hunting after all. See ya."

"Wait!" Ron cried as Dudley ran off to find his friends. They probably hadn't gotten too far, and he really needed to let off some steam.

* * *

Harry panted as he ran down the park path. It had been stupid to come to the park at that time of day, but it had been a while since Dudley and his gang had come after him so he must have gotten complacent. Luckily he was running on a full stomach thanks to the Dursley's wanting to keep up appearances in front of Weasley and he managed to outrun them. He doubled back to head home. It would be safe to hide in the backyard for a bit, especially if he did some weeding - something his aunt would probably make him do after Weasley was gone anyways.

Halfway home he spotted someone with bright orange hair ahead of him. Was that Weasley? Where was Dudley? And was Weasley limping? Curious, he decided to catch up. He was about to give Weasley a sarcastic greeting when the red-haired boy turned and Harry could see tears glittering in his eyes.

"Are you alright?" he found himself asking instead.

"M'fine," Weasley lied. "I think I twisted my ankle. Did Dudley's friends catch you?"

"No," Harry scoffed. "They're too slow to get me unless they can corner me."

"Here, you can lean on me," Harry offered awkwardly. Weasley was hobbling very slowly. It would take forever for him to get home at this rate. Weasley gave him a look filled with suspicion, winced as he took another step and then took Harry up on his offer.

"Where's Dudley?" he asked.

"Dunno," Weasley said. "Off with his _real_ friends I suppose."

Harry made a sympathetic noise. That did sound about right. He was honestly surprised that Weasley and Dudley's friendship had lasted so long already - Dudley hated most wizarding things, and Weasley was probably proud of his heritage. They walked the rest of the way back to number 4 Privet Drive in silence.

Dudley wasn't back yet when they arrived, so Ron went up to his friend's room to wait. Harry went to the backyard and worked on weeding the flowers. He doubted aunt Petunia would let him get away with lazing about in his room for long.

Harry didn't come in until it was dinner time. Dudley completely ignored Weasley, and aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon happily followed suit. Luckily for Weasley, his father came to pick him up the next morning. They had been planning on all going to Diagon Alley together, but Weasley's ankle had swollen up overnight and needed to be looked at, and Dudley hadn't even come to see his friend off.

Later in the day, aunt Petunia carefully stowed their Hogwarts letters at the bottom of her purse and shoved a cap on his head.

"But people know what I look like now! And they know that Dudley's my cousin," Harry complained.

"Only the ones you go to school with," aunt Petunia replied. "Give me your glasses."

"What! But I can hardly see without them!"

"People know you have glasses, so they're less likely to recognize you without them," she said meanly and pushed him into the car.

"First stop is Gringotts," uncle Vernon said with a look of glee on his face. "Let's see what your worthless parents left you - it'd better be enough to cover the cost of raising you!"

"Because you did such a good job of raising me," Harry grumbled into the window.

"What was that, boy? Think you deserve more, do you? Ungrateful brat!"

When they parked the car, uncle Vernon grabbed Harry by the arm and practically pulled him all the way to the bank.

"We would like to make a withdrawal from Harry Potter's account," uncle Vernon said as politely as he could to the teller as he placed Harry's key on the counter. Harry snickered as he thought that some things would never change - even if the bankers were goblins, uncle Vernon would still suck up to the people who controlled the money!

"Right this way," the goblin said gesturing behind him.

"I want to see how much money Harry has!" Dudley complained from behind him.

"Why don't we get some ice cream instead, sweetums," aunt Petunia simpered at him. She was not as good as uncle Vernon at hiding her distaste of the goblins and probably didn't want her precious Diddykins near the 'filthy creatures' any longer than necessary to convert their banknotes to wizard money.

"Fine," Dudley grumbled. "But I want three scoops!"

Harry followed the goblin as he took them back to what appeared to be a mining cart.

"Wait just a minute," uncle Vernon blustered, "you don't expect us to ride on _that_ , do you?"

"How else would you get to your vault," the goblin said as he gave him a nasty grin.

"I want to see a bank statement! Then tell you how much I wish to withdraw and have it brought to me," uncle Vernon said patronizingly.

"That's not how it works," the goblin said in an equally patronizing tone.

Just then another wizard went past following his own teller and got into the cart. It took off down into the darkness as fast as any rollercoaster. Uncle Vernon looked green.

"Can the carts go any, erm, slower?" he asked.

"One speed only," the goblin grinned, baring his pointy teeth.

Uncle Vernon took a faltering step towards the new cart and began to shake. Harry did his best not to look like he thought it was funny.

"Come here, boy," uncle Vernon finally commanded. "You're going to go to your vault alone and fill this bag with as much money as you can stuff into it. You will report back to me on _exactly_ how much money there is. If you lie to me, you'll be sorry!"

"Yes, uncle Vernon."

Harry couldn't believe his luck! Despite his threats, uncle Vernon had no way of knowing for sure whether Harry was lying or not. This was the perfect way to protect his money from his greedy relatives! He took the bag from his uncle and got into the cart behind the goblin. It zipped down the tracks at a sickenly fast speed, past rows and rows of vault doors. Harry couldn't see very far into the tunnels, but he could have sworn he heard loud roaring from somewhere down below them.

At last, the cart came to a screeching halt and the goblin took him to his vault.

"Stand back," he said as he opened the large metal door.

"Woah!" Harry said as he caught the first glimpse of piles of money. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but this was certainly more money than he had dared hope for. He began to shovel money into the small bag, making sure to fill most of the empty space with sickles and knuts with some shiny galleons at the top - uncle Vernon hadn't told him which type of coin to fill the bag with! He was about to leave when he realized that his uncle would probably take all of the money, so he scooped some galleons into his pockets and socks for some spending money.

"Well boy, did your parents leave you much?" his uncle asked with a greedy glint in his eyes when Harry was back at the entrance.

"Less than I thought," Harry lied. "Probably enough to fill this bag six or seven times more. I guess they just wanted to make sure I could pay for my school things."

"Give me that," uncle Vernon said as he snatched the bag of money. He hefted it in his hand, then stuck it into his pocket. "Are you sure there wasn't more?" he asked suspiciously.

"Well I can't see that well without my glasses, so I can't be sure," Harry said.

"Don't give me lip, boy," uncle Vernon said. "Let's get this shopping over with."

They met up with Dudley and aunt Petunia at the ice cream parlour. Dudley had dribbled his massive cone down his front and aunt Petunia was dutifully mopping it up.

"Well, how much was there?" she asked when she saw them.

"Only about enough to look after his schooling," Vernon frowned. "Of course his useless father didn't think to leave anything but the bare essentials!"

Petunia harrumphed and told Dudley to hurry with his ice cream. The sooner they were done their shopping, the sooner they could get back to the real world!

"I'd hate to get in your way while you shop," Harry said. "If you give me my money, I can get my things myself and meet you back when I'm done."

"As if we can trust a sneak like you with money," uncle Vernon sneered.

"I just need enough for my things," Harry said as innocently as he could. "I can't spend it on anything but my school supplies anyways. It's not like you'll pay for things if I don't get them myself!"

"Get they boy's list out, Pet," uncle Vernon commanded. He quickly looked down the list, mumbling numbers to himself. He handed Harry the list, then counted out the precise amount of coins he thought Harry would need to buy all of it. The amount he gave him was only maybe enough if he bought all second-hand things again, so he was glad for the galleons he'd stashed away in his pockets.

"You will meet us back here precisely at 4pm, you hear me?"

"Yes, uncle Vernon," Harry said, then raced off before his uncle could change his mind.

"We're leaving without you if you're a second late!" uncle Vernon yelled after him.

Harry knew exactly where his first stop would be: Ollivanders. He was going to get a wand that was right for him, and his life was going to get so much easier! He burst into the shop out of breath from running the whole way and immediately regretted it - the only other sound in the deathly quiet shop was a quiet bell ringing from somewhere near the back. He stood panting at the front, and jumped in surprise when an old man appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

"Hello Mister Potter," the man - who must have been Ollivander - said. "I have been expecting you for a while now - last year, I thought, but time is fond of playing tricks on the old. You have your mother's eyes"

"Erm, okay?" Harry replied, a bit uncomfortable with the man. Uncle Vernon had said he seemed a bit off, but Harry hadn't paid much attention seeing as anything magical seemed off to his uncle.

"Last year was my first year at Hogwarts," Harry explained. "Only I couldn't afford my own wand, so I got one second-hand."

Mr. Ollivander shuddered. "No, no, that won't do at all. The wand chooses the wizard, after all, and wands remember their masters. No, a second-hand wand will not do."

He took all sorts of measurements then began to bring Harry wands to try, but none of them seemed to be quite right. All the while, he kept up a conversation showing that he had an amazing memory for someone who looked so old; He remembered the wands Harry's parents had bought years and years ago! But Harry's wand turned out not to be like his parent's at all. Instead, his wand was made out of holly and phoenix feather from the same phoenix that gave a feather for Voldemort's wand!

"You sold a wand to Voldemort?" Harry asked.

"I make the finest wands in wizarding Britain, Mr. Potter," Mr. Ollivander said. "But of course he was just a boy when he got his wand. I could tell he had potential - the wand he chose indicated that he had a strong magical core, just as yours does - but in the end, he used his power to accomplish terrible things"

Harry was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Why was his wand connected to Voldemort's? He rubbed his scar thoughtfully, paid for his wand, and left the shop.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts and squinted at his list. He was having trouble reading the handwriting without his glasses! He was worried he would have to ask all of the shopkeepers for help when someone tripped over their robes right in front of him.

"Oh Neville," a woman with some sort of bird on her had sighed as she yanked the boy to his feet. "Can't you even walk in robes without falling over?"

"Sorry g-gran," Neville said.

"Neville?" Harry asked.

"Harry! It's so g-great to see you! Wow, I didn't even r-recognize you without your glasses."

"It's great to see you too," Harry said with a grin. "But try not to say my name too loudly. My aunt doesn't want people to know I'm here. They might swarm me if they realize."

"An undercover mission," Neville nodded, understanding perfectly. "Are y-you doing your school shopping?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "Only I can't actually see the list without my glasses. But look! I just got my new wand!"

"Wicked!" Neville exclaimed. "I got mine right at the b-beginning of the summer! Say, would you like to join us?"

He looked to his gran hesitantly. "That is, gran, may Harry Potter accompany us on our shopping trip?"

"You're Harry Potter?" the imposing woman asked.

"Yes ma'am," Harry responded.

"Slytherin house?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Hmph. I can't say I approve of that, but at least you seem to have some manners. Your assistance helping Neville last year was appreciated. Who knows whether he would have passed his courses without you and that Granger girl."

"G-Gran!" Neville said as he turned bright pink.

"We were both having troubles with our wands," Harry said. He didn't like how Neville's gran seemed to think so little of him.

"Mm," she said and pressed her lips into a thin line. "Come along then, both of you. We are going to get this done in an efficient and orderly fashion."

Shopping with Neville was way more fun than shopping with his aunt had been! For one thing, they went to the first hand stores, not the dingy discount ones he'd been forced to get all of his supplies from last year. Harry still made sure not to get anything that looked too fancy. He wouldn't want his uncle getting suspicious about the money, after all!

Everything was going without incident until they reached the bookstore. A tall blonde man stormed out right in front of them, Draco Malfoy hot on his heels.

"Lucius Malfoy," Neville's gran spat under her breath. She obviously didn't like Mr. Malfoy any more than Harry and Neville liked his son. Inside the store, Mrs. Weasley was busy fussing over her husband, their children chatting excitedly beside them.

"What's going on?" Neville asked Ron. "We just saw M-Malfoy rushing out!"

"It was brilliant!" Ron told him. "Dad and Mr. Malfoy got in a fight! They had to be pulled apart!"

"It was not brilliant," Mrs. Weasley said. "It was a juvenile stunt and a terrible example for the children that is _not to be repeated_."

Neville's gran made a disapproving noise and pulled Neville along into the store. Harry stayed on her other side so the Weasleys wouldn't see him. His aunt would be terribly upset if Mrs. Weasley started fussing about him in front of all these people!

"Why's it so c-crowded?" Neville asked his aunt.

"Use your eyes," she said as she gestured to the table most of the people were milling about.

"Who's Gilderoy Lockhart?" Neville asked. Harry assumed that there must be a sign that he couldn't read.

"A prolific writer of what he insists is nonfiction," his gran responded. "He seems to have accomplished quite a lot for someone who seems more suited for selling hair care products. I don't know what they were thinking assigning his books as your defense texts! Gadding with Ghouls - pah! It's written like an adventure novel, not a textbook."

Harry perked up at that. He would much rather read adventure story than a textbook. Pretty much any child, excluding Hermione, would. It seemed like it may be a way to get the students more interested in the subject after their miserable luck with Quirrel last year. He bet wizarding adventures would be even more exciting than Stephen's Amazon journals! Maybe Neville's gran was just being old-fashioned, although he certainly wished the books cost a little bit less. He was going to have to spend most of his remaining money on them, leaving very little for spending money.

They were about to go to the cashier to buy their books when the crowd began to clamour around Lockhart himself. He had apparently been taking a break, but was back for more book signing. Neville's gran hurried them along to get them out as soon as possible, but Neville was distracted and managed to trip over the corner of a shelf. He fell over, and pulled Harry and a stack of books down with him. Everyone in the shop turned to look at them.

"Could it be?" Lockhart said. "Is that Harry Potter?"

Harry froze. People weren't supposed to recognize him with his cap and without his glasses! But there on the floor lay the cap his aunt had forced him to wear. It must have fallen off when he fell, and now his messy hair and scar were out for everyone to see.

The crowd immediately began to point and whisper. Harry felt terribly exposed. Lockhart raced over to where he and Neville had fallen and grabbed Harry's arm. He ignored Neville completely and dragged Harry all the way to his table. Harry hoped with all his might that the Dursleys had already picked up Dudley's books. He stood, pretty much frozen as Lockhart put his hand on Harry's shoulder and made him pose for the camera. _FLASH_! His picture was taken by hoards of photographers who could sense a headline like a shark senses blood and had come flocking as soon as his name had been mentioned. A stack of books was piled onto his arms, more photos were taken and then Lockhart made a horrifying announcement: the reason all of his books were on the booklist was because he himself was going to be teaching at Hogwarts! Harry may have been willing to ignore the warning from Neville's gran, but he was not willing to ignore the way the man was acting now. He was not the sort of adventurer Harry admired at all!

Finally he was free to go. The crowd parted to let him out, so he made his way as quickly as possible to the exit. He was nearly there when a meaty hand grabbed his arm. It was uncle Vernon, his face the horrible puce colour it got when he was about to start yelling.

"Oh, hello uncle Vernon," Harry said faintly. "Did you just get here?"

Uncle Vernon made a strangled sound and dragged Harry out of the building.

"We saw the whole thing," Dudley said gleefully. "You're in so much trouble!"

"If you're missing anything from your list, you will have to make due," aunt Petunia hissed at him.

They marched quickly through Diagon Alley and got back to the car. The drive was silent all the way home, but when they got back uncle Vernon exploded.

"HOW DARE YOU GO AGAINST MY ORDERS," he bellowed. "YOU UNGRATEFUL BRAT! YOU WILL NEVER SET FOOT IN DIAGON ALLEY AGAIN, YOU HEAR?"

He shoved Harry and stomped out of the room.

"You're just like your idiot father," aunt Petunia told him. "He couldn't bear it when anyone else was the center of attention either."

"But I didn't want him to drag me up to the front like that!" Harry exclaimed. "My cap fell off and he recognized me!"

"Maybe next time I'll glue to to your head," she hissed. "That'll teach you disobey!"

Loud drilling noises came from upstairs. Aunt Petunia continued scolding him until uncle Vernon came back downstairs, sawdust dusting his walrus moustache.

"To your room, boy," he commanded.

Harry didn't talk back. He had never been quite this scared of his relatives before! He raced up to his room and listened with dread as uncle Vernon's heavy footsteps followed him. What was going on? Was he finally going to get that beating uncle Vernon always promised? No. He heard a click from the other side and the sound of uncle Vernon waddling back down the stairs. He waited until it seemed safe and then tried his door. It was locked from the outside. Thank goodness there were only a few more days until school started!

A/N: most of the reviews I got last week were people worried that things would never get better for Harry. Just in case more of you feel the same way, this story is NOT tagged as a tragedy, and that's not about to change. And honestly, I feel like I gave him a much better summer than he had in canon - he was starved and confined in his room with no contact from his friends AND nearly got expelled in the beginning of the chamber of secrets!


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